A Little Ballerina
by Catsafari
Summary: *Christmas Special 2012* In hindsight, it all went wrong when the Baron arrived on the doorstep, Haru decided. After all, there are only so many ways to react to being turned into a foot-high figurine. She just wasn't sure whether to commend or condemn him. AU.
1. Saturday 1st December

**A/N: Well, the 2011 Christmas Special went down such a treat, I couldn't resist doing another festive tale. So I present my second Christmas Advent Special for the TCR fandom, **_**The Little Ballerina**_**. It's based off _The Nutcracker_ and _The Steadfast Tin Soldier_. While I wandered from the plot, there is a specific version of _The Nutcracker _that, in hindsight, heavily influenced my story. Kudos to whoever guesses it.**

**Again, there are a few things:**

**There will be a chapter a day (like last time). **

**There are 25 chapters in total (like last time).**

**Each chapter is set on their respective day; each chapter should last only a day in the story timeline. So today is set the first of December. (Again, you've guessed it, like last time.)**

**But, unlike last time, this is an AU. So forget what the film told you and lose yourself in the ride.**

**And, once again, enjoy!**

**One final note I feel compelled to add: This story is much darker than last year's. Last year I was mostly just messing around with the idea of Baron and Christmas; this year I decided to do something more plot-based. And you know how my plots usually go. **

**ooOoo**

"_Christmas begins about the first of December with an office party and ends when you finally realize what you spent, around April fifteenth of the next year." ~ P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners_

x

Saturday 1st December 2012: Christmas Begins

The sky was turning an interestingly purple shade of grey by the time the brunette dragged her stumbling suitcase to the front porch of the house. She glanced once up to the sky, observing the flat clouds stretching from horizon to horizon and mentally noted that it looked like it was about to snow. She lugged her protesting luggage a few stuttering feet forward. The suitcase had been new only a week back; at some point she had thought the ten minute walk to her destination to be a better idea than flagging down a taxi from the train station. During that walk, the suitcase's wheels had jarred into every bump and dip in the suffering pavement, eventually dislocating the right wheel and subjecting the suitcase to a lurching sort of bumping walk.

The suitcase stumbled another step forward and rolled to a halt when it hit the back of the woman's legs. She kicked it a few inches back to stop it biting at her ankles and gave the house before her another look-over. The redbrick walls were accented with the green paint the window sills and doors proudly boasted and, despite the aging colour of the walls, the green paint appeared to have been well-maintained. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she found the Christmas colouring rather amusing.

"Haru? Haru Yoshioka? Is that you? Come in before you catch your death!"

The brunette's musings were broken by the call and the abrupt opening of the door before her. She blinked and stepped back, kicking her ankles into her suitcase once again. A woman in her early forties stood in the open doorway, face framed by hair tinted with a hint of red with an easy smile rising to her lips.

"Hello, Shizuku. It's been a while since I last came here, hasn't it?"

"I'll say," the elder woman enthusiastically agreed. She leant back into the house, looking back to whoever else resided. "Hey, Seiji! Haru's arrived! Come and help with her luggage!" She glanced back to Haru, leaning casually against the doorframe. Haru noticed the pencil nonchalantly resting behind one ear; something of a habit that she rarely broke. "So, Haru, how was the journey? Were the trains crowded today?"

Haru was in the process of lugging her suitcase up the solitary step that would bring her onto the porch. She gasped out a reply as she hoisted up her luggage by a mere inch. "Not... too bad!"

Shizuku's eyes widened in sudden sympathy, and rather abruptly she was rushing over to help haul the bag onto the step. "We've made your bed on the first floor, but perhaps we'll let my husband carry your stuff upstairs." She gave a scheming wink and dragged the protesting suitcase inside the redbrick house. "Well, I'm glad to hear the journey down wasn't too traumatic. When is your mother coming?"

"In a couple of days. I think she mentioned the fifth."

"What is she up to again?"

"A quilting convention, I think." Haru pushed her case the last few feet into the house and finally paused to lean against a conveniently-placed table. Her expression looked uncomfortable, as if she'd rather not discuss this. "She said she was looking forward to spending Christmas with friends this year," she added, "and I guess we haven't been back here in several years now so..." Haru gave an uncomfortable shrug and looked round for a way to move the topic on. "I see you've redecorated."

"Oh, well, we've been planning to ever since Seiji inherited this place – just a lick of paint to brighten up the room – but we made sure we kept it in the same style as before. Seiji's grandfather did a grand job on the place and... Hang on." Shizuku abruptly broke off to march over to the banister leading to the floor below.

Now they had stopped talking, Haru could hear the faint, unmistakable sound of a violin beneath her feet. Haru had barely enough time to realise who was playing before Shizuku was leaning over the banister, shouting to the violin player.

"Seiji, I said _Haru's here_! Come up and greet our guest!"

Haru would have winced a little at Shizuku's impressive vocal volume, but her voice could also reach similar volumes. Not for the first time, Haru wondered what kind of terrifying duo her mother and Shizuku must have made when they were younger.

The violin's faint melody screeched to a halt, soon followed by the telltale sounds of someone attempting to carefully put the instrument away as hastily as they dared, and said someone emerged at the top of the stairs. He appeared to be a man around the same age as his wife, tall, with dark hair that betrayed just the beginnings of traitorous grey hairs.

"Shizuku, dear, do you honestly have to be so..."

"Enthusiastic? Energetic?" Shizuku grinned and kissed her husband once on the cheek. "But, of course. I thought you knew that when you married me, _dear_."

"I thought age would eventually bring maturity. I stand corrected."

"Of course you do. Now, could you be a _dear_ and take Haru's luggage upstairs? She looks like she's exhausted herself with all the travelling she's done today. Haru, what say you to a warm cup of something? Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?"

"Hot chocolate sounds delicious."

Seiji rolled his eyes at his wife's boundless energy and picked up Haru's suitcase. Before he disappeared up the stairs to the floor above, he paused by the brunette and stage-whispered, "Don't let her bully you. I'm doing my best to coax the bad habit out of her."

"Seiji!"

The man grinned conspiringly and hurriedly started dragging Haru's case up the stairs, one step at a time. "Sorry, dear."

"I should hope so too."

Shizuku headed towards the kitchen, beckoning for Haru to follow, but the younger woman paused. She watched Seiji haul her luggage up the stairs, guilt beginning to crease her brow. "Hey, Seiji, if you want, I'll help..."

"No need. Honestly, Haru; I can manage this."

"Don't worry about him," Shizuku told the girl, coming back to lead her into the kitchen. "He needs the exercise, especially since all he does nowadays is sit behind his desk, messing about with his instruments in that workshop of his..."

"I heard that!" Seiji shouted from halfway up the stairs. "And that's rather rich, coming from the writer who spends her hours locked away in her office, _writing_."

"I love you too!"

Seiji called back the same, leaving Shizuku chuckling as she busied herself around the kitchen. Like from every past experience Haru had spent at the Amasawas' home, the kitchen was in the state of eternal half-tidied. To Haru, it looked like the Amasawas permanently attempted to tidy their kitchen, but remembered something halfway through the job and left to attend another matter. Knowing Shizuku's irregularity with what the author referred to as either 'plot bunnies' or 'inspiration' or 'ideas' (which, Haru felt, was simply jargon for the need to write _now_) she could well believe that any attempts at tidying would sooner or later be discarded in favour of writing.

Bringing her back to the present, Shizuku moved a pile of fairly recent newspapers to the side which, rather than significantly increasing the tidiness of the area, just created a larger stack of old papers. Shizuku carefully left what looked suspiciously like story notes scattered across the table, left in their own bizarre order. Once finished, Shizuku started on the drinks, flicking on the kettle and readying the mugs before turning around to observe the young brunette.

"So, Haru... How are things between you and your mother?"

Haru suddenly developed an interest in the scrawled, handwritten notes spanning the table. "Fine. What are you writing now, Shizuku? I heard your last book was quite a success..."

"Haru, don't change the subject."

"I'm not. I've just had a long day travelling today and I'm rather tired."

Shizuku's unladylike grunt didn't sound that believing. As usual, Shizuku rarely sounded her age; sometimes Haru got the impression she had still retained a young, almost teenage attitude to life. Admittedly, it was one of the reasons Haru got along with Shizuku so well, even with Haru being half the age of the older woman, but the thought still struck Haru with surprise.

"Alright, alright, I get that you don't want to talk about it. I'll let it go. But you've got to face it at some point."

"Face what?" Haru asked innocently.

Shizuku merely glowered as she dumped an extravagant hot chocolate before her guest, complete with cream, marshmallows and what looked like sprinkled chocolate.

"Hot chocolate? And none was made for me?" Seiji appeared at the doorway and took a seat at the kitchen table. Mock hurt spread across his face. "How could you forget me?"

"I try, I try. But if you ask nice, I might make an extra one."

"Well, if tea's a choice..."

"If you ask extra nice, I'll get the teabags out. And if you take back what you said about writing."

"Alright. Oh, dear, beautiful Shizuku, I was completely wrong about the art of writing. It's a very demanding, exhaustive exercise and should be treated with the utmost respect. Does that earn a cup of tea? Perhaps even a special blend?"

Shizuku sighed and blew a kiss to her husband. "I think so."

Haru watched the exchange with mild amusement, unsure what she was meant to do with this debate firing over her head. There was a momentary prick of sadness when she recalled the situation at home, followed by a seed of anger. She squashed both emotions away, refusing to disrupt the Amasawas' easy atmosphere they'd so casually built together.

"So, Haru," Seiji started, perhaps sensing a requirement as a host to bring Haru into the discussion, "I hear your dancing career is taking off." He glanced over to his wife, grinning a little at the memories it stirred. "It feels like only yesterday you were spinning round in your first ballerina outfit, telling us all how you were someday going to be a famous dancer and all. Well, you certainly showed us."

Grateful for the 'safe' topic, Haru blushed a little at the memory. She couldn't remember it that clearly, but she certainly could recall vague images of herself rushing round her home in a pink tutu as a child. "Thank you."

"It's what brought you here, isn't it?" Seiji continued. "You have a performance after Christmas here, don't you? Will you be practicing at some point?"

"Most days," Haru admitted. "You probably won't see that much of me; I keep myself to myself when at home and the practices last most of the day. But thank you for offering to let me stay. I didn't fancy spending Christmas in a travel lodge, if I'm to be honest."

"It was the least we could do," Shizuku assured as she joined the other two at the table. She passed a steaming cup of tea before her husband and grinned to her guest. "Anyway, it's been years since you last stayed here. How could we possibly pass up the opportunity to see you when you were stopping by so close? What's the show you're doing, again?"

"_The Nutcracker_. I play Clara. Or Marie, depending on your point of view," Haru amended. "Clara's the name of the girl in the ballet version, but in the book, it's Marie. Sorry, you probably didn't need to know that. There was a lot of debate when they first decided upon _The Nutcracker_." She was rambling, but tiredness was finally beginning to catch up with her. The journey down had taken more out of her than she'd initially believed.

"Well, I think it sounds brilliant."

"We've already booked tickets," Seiji, significantly calmer than his other half. "We're all very impressed that you managed to follow your dream through. A dancing career is very demanding, or so I've heard."

"Haru must have the same luck as the rest of us," Shizuku noted.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, look at the rest of us." Shizuku motioned to herself and her husband. "I managed to make a living out of my writing – somehow – and Seiji does his music, and your mother has made a career out of her quilting... I guess you must have inherited the ability to follow your dreams."

Seiji rolled his eyes. "You've got such fanciful notions, Shizuku. I expect Haru managed to follow her dreams through hard work and perseverance – and the occasional bout of good luck," he added with a grin. "But, then again, what's life without the odd moment of lucky unpredictability?"

"Boring."

"Shizuku, dear, I think I was aiming for a rhetorical question."

"And, as the only published author here, I more than most understand what a rhetorical question is." She shrugged, smirking through her hot chocolate. "But, hey, I'm only a writer. I only make my living from words."

"And you're very good at it. Happy?"

"Ecstatic."

"Good."

Haru yawned from the sidelines, stirring the last of her hot chocolate absent-mindedly with a teaspoon. As usual with any hot chocolate, the remaining chocolate powder had gathered at the bottom, settling into a sludge-like substance with the consistency of runny mud. She was on the verge of wondering whether she was remotely tempted to drink up the last dredges when Seiji spotted her drooping eyelids.

"Haru, perhaps it's time for you to head to bed. You look utterly done in. When do your practices start?"

"On the third." Haru hid another yawn, to no avail. "Tomorrow I plan on milking as much as possible the chance for a lie-in. You won't mind if I don't get up early tomorrow, will you?"

"I wouldn't worry. Shizuku's about as much a morning bird as the regular night owl."

Shizuku made a face at her husband. "I just appreciate sleep, that's all. You're simply an oddity."

"Of course I am, dear." Seiji finished off the last of his tea and, moving his and Haru's empty mugs to the sink, got up. "I'll show you up to your room. Your bags and everything are there, and the bathroom is the first door next to the stairs."

Haru rose sleepily to her feet. "Thanks. And, again, thanks for letting me stay."

"You're like family, Haru. Of course we would let you stay." The two, leaving Shizuku with her chocolate and scattering of story notes, headed up the stairs. Seiji flicked a switch on that flooded the steps with light, glancing behind once to the brunette following him. "Oh, and just one more thing. Shizuku may not be an early riser, but I am. I usually get some practising done in the morning, so if you hear the violin, it's only me."

"Get some violin practice in before Shizuku arrives on the scene, is it?"

Seiji chuckled. "Oh, Shizuku will probably be awake by about eleven. She won't appear downstairs until about two – except, of course, for food and for locating whatever notes she's left downstairs. If you want a cooked breakfast, you can either ask me or, if you're feeling up to tackling our kitchen, make some yourself." He chuckled again. "We trust you not to burn down the house."

"That's very reassuring."

"One would hope so."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: If you want to read a finished festive story, perhaps try my Christmas Special from last year: **_**A Winter's Tale**_**. There's also YC's Nutcracker take on TCR: **_**My Feline Gentleman**_**; Fringeperson's **_**A Cat Returns Christmas Carol **_**& **_**Cat's Christmas**_**; samuraistar's **_**Haru and the Nutcracker**_**; Jva J's **_**A**__**Christmas Wonder**_**; PeaceLightVictory's **_**Never Ceases To Amaze**_** and, finally, ChiinatsuKaminaga's **_**Christmas Wonders**_**. Hopefully that should sustain you until the next Christmas!**

**Right, that's enough mutual advertising. I apologise for the absurd amount of A/N.**

**God Bless and Merry Christmas!**

**Catsafari. =^^= **


	2. Sunday 2nd December

"_Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space." ~ Dave Barry_

x

Sunday 2nd December 2012: Traditions

"Haru, are you sure you don't want to come? It's an open invitation." Shizuku lingered guiltily at the door, purse lightly being passed from hand to hand in a vaguely sheepish fashion. "My writing group are always happy to see a new face..."

Haru only laughed and shook her head. "No thanks, but thanks anyway. I don't want to impose..."

"Oh, you wouldn't be imposing!"

"And I could do with the rest."

Seiji laughed and began prompting his wife out the door. "It's a quiet writers' Christmas get-together; it's hardly going to be a wild party."

Shizuku made a face at the man. "Are you saying writers are incapable of having wild parties?"

"Of course not, dear." He looked to their young guest. "Haru, you're sure you'll be alright by yourself?"

"I'm twenty, Seiji. I think I can cope by myself."

"I'm sure you can. Try not to burn down the house while we're gone."

"I think you've already made that joke once."

"I have? Huh, perhaps I'm getting old."

Shizuku giggled. "Would explain a lot."

Haru resisted rolling her eyes as the pair indulged in their petty bickering, eventually moving the location of their discussion to the outdoor porch, then the front garden, and finally onto the pavement. Their guest smiled and eventually shut the door behind her.

'_At last. I thought it was going to take all day before they remembered they had a party to attend._'

She sighed, wiped at her eyes with the back of her palm in an attempt to offset tiredness, and drifted into the kitchen. A cup of hot chocolate later and she was heading upstairs to her appointed guest room.

She hadn't done much unpacking yet; her suitcase was still propped up against the end of her bed, a few stray clothes spilling out of the edges from the morning, but otherwise it lay untouched. Her backpack was dropped at the far end of her bed, not so far from the suitcase, but showed more use.

Haru collapsed onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling and examining the pattern above her. It was paper, rather than paint, and despite the first smooth appearance, it was in fact patterned with semi-irregular bumpy streaks. She took her time to commit it to memory, soaking in the new peace of the house. For once there weren't whispers of violins floating from two floors down, or the strangely loud clatter of computer keys from Shizuku.

Haru had always assumed, from various films and adverts, that writers had a pretty laid-back routine. Get up whenever, write, daydream, eat, write, go to bed whenever. The last day with Shizuku had already shattered a few of those expectations. True, she was usually late up, but that was counterbalanced with the past-midnight writing times; words pasted across the computer screen at a frantic pace. She also discovered it wasn't good to interrupt Shizuku; the woman loved her goddaughter, but when she was writing, there was little else that could possibly interest her. Only Seiji appeared able to convince her to take a break and eat.

So now Haru relished the settling peace of the house. Her sense of personal space expanded from the guest room to the entirety of the house, realising she had the place to herself until the party ended. Seiji had hinted that the writers could natter past midnight, so she wasn't expecting them any time soon. She grinned to herself, then the grin faded when the thought of unpacking came back. She groaned, pushed herself off the bed, and started with the suitcase.

The Amasawas had provided an empty wardrobe in the guest room, something Haru guessed she should take advantage of, and began with moving clothing, now creased and squashed despite earlier precautions with packing, into the more roomy space of the wardrobe. Halfway through the suitcase, and she came across the personal items packed between the clothing for protection. A couple of photo frames, one of her and her mother, the other of her and a friend, were carefully placed on the bedside table, followed by a ballerina figurine.

The statuette was about a foot tall, her delicate arms raised in mid-dance and her china tutu falling past her knees in layered folds of snowy white and icy blue. Ebony black hair was pinned up into a bun, with eyes forever closed in the illusion of peace. A small smile tugged at Haru's lips as the figurine was neatly placed on the table's surface.

"Guess I better savour the peace while it lasts," she murmured. She turned away and seated herself on the end of her bed, lingering while the tiredness still loitered in her limbs. For a moment she entertained the idea of dancing, but discarded that when the exhaustion rose again. She would be in rehearsals tomorrow anyway; she would be dancing her shoes off over the next few weeks so that impulse could wait.

A ringing broke her train of thought.

Her phone was buzzing on the same bedside table, vibrating so violently that it was managing to travel across the table. Haru instinctively scooped up the mobile before it could inch its way off the desk.

And then she stared.

She knew the number – heck, she knew it better than her own mobile's – but the surprise was caused by decisions rather than the unexpected. The phone continued to buzz, ringing with insistent demand, and continued to do so even as she dropped it onto the sheets.

She couldn't cope with that drama. Not tonight.

Her mother's call went unanswered.

ooOoo

Haru eventually found a pastime in one of Shizuku's many books. Either out of pride or just the need to display her achievement, Shizuku had the majority of her novels lining the guest room's rather over-full bookcase. Then again, Haru mused as she wandered through fiction, it might have just been because they had run out of book space anywhere else. Between Shizuku's fascination with books and Seiji's violin collection, there never seemed to be enough rooms in the house for everything they owned.

But Haru managed to finally choose one of the books and retreated back to her bed. The story was one of Shizuku's early ones – in fact her first novel, if Haru remembered correctly. Haru knew it almost backwards – due to it being the book of her mother's friend, Haru had quite literally grown up with it – and for that evening she allowed herself to fall into the familiar world of the Baron.

The Baron was Shizuku's first character. Haru had been told repeatedly of the discovery of the wooden cat figurine – how she had found the doll in that very shop – and the sudden inspiration that followed it. For most of the early books, the Baron had lacked any further name; only several years later was his full name revealed, although Haru had never heard the story behind it. She knew there was one, for the name always made Shizuku smile although the smile was sad too, but she had never received any answers.

She hadn't asked in a long time.

But now, for now, she simply stepped into the Baron's world. Despite her familiarity with the book, she still struggled to pull herself away from its pages. Midnight struck and, surprised, she looked up. For a moment the page floated before her eyes, caught off guard by the abrupt change in scenery, and she acknowledged the time. Hours had flown by.

But she was nearing the end and she promised herself she would head straight to sleep when she was finished. However, even as she convinced herself she would follow that promise through, there was a kerfuffle downstairs.

She paused, and tilted her head to one side.

Strange. She hadn't remembered hearing the front door open. Perhaps Shizuku and Seiji were trying not to wake her, but she would have thought she'd have heard the door. She hesitated, waiting for any other tell-tale sounds. She knew the Amasawas – even if they tried their best, she doubted they'd be able to be that quiet in sneaking back in.

A frown began to form when the house stayed quiet.

She shook her head and tried to convince herself that she was tired – that she'd been up reading too late – and that it was nothing. Unfortunately her mind was still too full of the Baron and his adventures and, as she was quickly learning, there was nothing better than some late-night reading to prompt the paranoia.

Her hand fluttered over the light switch, torn between ignoring the noise and investigating. Curiosity eventually won out though and soon she was donning a dressing gown and tip-toeing out into the landing.

She had been right; the Amasawas had returned. She could see the light emanating from the lounge. Initially she hesitated. She had expected them to head straight to bed once they returned, but perhaps their love of tea had won out and they were having a last cuppa before heading in. Either way, she found herself sneaking down the stairs, doing her best to avoid the creaking sections of the staircase.

But, even as she neared, she realised something was wrong.

The light was blue, not yellow, and it almost seemed to be... pulsing. Haru's feet slowed and she inched her way for the last metre, coming to a stop at the side of the doorway. This wasn't right. She sunk cautiously to the ground, hunched on her haunches and back pressed against the wall. And she could hear... voices. Voices that didn't belong to either of the Amasawas.

"Search, babes, come on. He has to be around here somewhere. The rumour said he was seen only three blocks away."

"Your Majesty, what certainty is it that he is here? There are many other houses–"

"This is where he came from. It can't be a coincidence that he was seen so close..."

"What about the humans here?"

"They are out. Reports came in of them attending a party."

Haru scrunched up her nose and tried to make sense of the messed-up conversation. Unfortunately, tiredness and too much reading didn't make the task very easy. But there were several things of which she could be sure of.

Firstly that she was dealing with intruders. Secondly that she should be phoning the police.

Curiosity was still playing on her mind though. Instead of sneaking straight back to her room to her phone, she snatched a glance round the door.

And stared.

And stared some more.

And finally concluded that Shizuku's books had finally got the better of her.

The lounge had been invaded by cats.

Haru had accepted her cat-speaking abilities a long time ago; they were something she had never tried to explain, with her mother only dismissing it as childish fantasies, along with the majority of most adults. Only Shizuku had believed her. Had even based one of her stories on Haru – changing the name, but promising the then-girl that the heroine was really Haru – and her cat-speaking abilities.

But she drew a line at cats invading the lounge.

But there they were, parading around the room. They poked the Christmas tree and upset the delicately-balanced holly and left several claw marks on the side of furniture, all while Haru watched. Her eyes rested on the fat cat lazing about in the middle, pompously shouting his commands while the rest of the felines busied themselves with the search. An overt crown rested atop his head, an eerie purple gem blinking in time with the cat's own mismatched eyes.

She shivered and retreated back behind the wall, but not before her mind had registered the portal.

It had been blue and round – and, to her unease, resting in the fireplace. It felt like some distorted Father Christmas joke. It also seemed familiar somehow. She closed her eyes and wondered whether she dared try to chase the cats out or just sneak back upstairs and pretend nothing had happened.

After all, who would believe her?

There was the sudden bang of the front door, sparing her from making a decision. The cats were heard to screech and perform a hasty retreat through their portal; the blue light was seen to flicker from Haru's vantage point. And then, as if the world was utterly, completely, blessedly normal, Shizuku and Seiji entered.

Shizuku was the first to spot Haru curled up against the wall. The hallway light was flicked on and Haru saw the woman's eyes widen.

"Haru? Is everything okay?"

Haru got to her feet. She spared one last glance to the lounge.

The cats were gone. The portal had vanished.

Everything was normal.

"Yeah, everything's fine."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Before anyone asks or comments on it, Shizuku's story based on Haru **_**isn't**_** TCR. This isn't a straight crossover, merely a dabbling of the two fandoms (TCR and WoTH) with no true canon for either; I guess it's AU for both. Shizuku's story **_**is**_** similar to TCR, but there are significant differences that will be lighted upon later and are important for the avoidance of plot holes.**


	3. Monday 3rd December

_Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." ~ Calvin Coolidge_

x

Monday 3nd December 2012: A State of Mind

Over the course of the next day, Haru got the distinct impression Shizuku didn't believe her. Luckily, Shizuku's attention span wasn't that attentive, so the matter was left by lunchtime, if not forgotten. And, by the evening, when Haru was afraid Shizuku might pick up the matter again, there was a surprise on the front porch that drove the issue right out of everyone's mind.

The Baron returned.

Shizuku found him, standing erect on her front porch. Her yell brought the other two to the door; Haru had initially worried that something terrible had happened – like the cats had come back and were stealing her away – but she found Shizuku grinning like an idiot, wooden figurine clutched in her fingers and a rapid torrent of words flooding from her mouth.

"Was there a note?" Seiji asked. He peered round his wife, onto the empty porch, where no letter resided.

"None. None at all!"

"I wonder who returned him then..."

"Who cares? He's back!"

Haru caught a glance of the precious doll, seeing the figurine for the first time. As far as she could remember, the Baron had been missing. Disappeared before she had even been born. As of such, she had only seen drawings of him, courtesy of Shizuku, and had never quite believed she'd ever get to see the real thing. Shizuku had believed differently, never quite giving up that he would return.

In hindsight, Shizuku's phrasing had been... weird, Haru noted as they talked over cups of tea. Baron stood proudly in the middle of the kitchen table, top hat still balanced on his head and wooden cane still in hand. Shizuku had used terms like 'returned' or 'back' as if the Baron had merely walked away and got lost. For twenty years. As if he had returned of his own accord, rather than due to some do-gooder leaving him on the porch. But she kept quiet and let Shizuku happily express her glee.

"Of course, I never believed that he was lost to us forever," Shizuku insisted animatedly, "but still, to come back after twenty years..."

"It sounds like something out of one of your books," Seiji noted.

"Oh, if my books had any impact, he'd have turned up at least fifteen years earlier." Shizuku's fingers curled possessively round the figurine in such a way that Haru doubted the woman was even aware of it. "I wonder why he chose to return _now _though..."

"A fan of yours probably stumbled upon him," her husband rationalised. "Probably found him and decided that you'd like to have him. Strange that there was no note," he added. "Would have thought a fan would leave a note..."

"Does it matter? Anyway, why do you have to take all the wonder out of things?"

Seiji only rolled his eyes. His fingers gestured to the figurine again. "There's been a few changes since we last saw him. His eyes were more yellow back then and his suit has changed a little. And I'm sure his fur was more orange than it is now..."

"He _has_ been gone twenty years."

"Alright. Point made." Seiji only rolled his eyes again at Shizuku's tone and turned to Haru. "So how was the rehearsal today? You sounded pretty bushed when you came back."

Haru only laughed. "Exactly how I expected it. Busy. Disorganised. Not too dissimilar to herding cats. Sorry, Baron," she added to the feline figurine. "But, really, someone's already managed to break a prop and there's a young stagehand that's left all the younger dancers in a ditz. They spent more time fluttering eyes at the man than they did dancing."

"And what do you think of the stagehand?" Shizuku asked slyly. "Is he nice?"

"I haven't a clue. We've barely spoken and... Shizuku! Stop trying to pair me up!"

The woman giggled. "Sorry. So, now we're on the subject, _is_ there a guy we should be aware of?"

Haru snorted and sipped her tea. "No. And don't try to change that, Shizuku. I just don't feel ready for a relationship yet."

"She is only twenty," Seiji patiently reminded his wife. "Not everyone meets the love of their life at the tender age we did." He looked back to Haru. "I congratulate you on your confidence, although don't block people off because of it."

"I don't block people off," Haru insisted. "I can still make friends; I'm just not desperate to be in a relationship right now. Anyway," she added quietly, "from what I've seen of love, it makes fools of even the most rational."

A strange, bittersweet smile slipped over Shizuku's face, completely at odds with her usual buoyant mood. "How is your mother, Haru? Still in love?"

"Still besotted, if that's what you mean."

"You should be happy for her. She's had a second chance at love – something not many of us get. And fewer of us take opportunity of."

Haru grumbled into her mug, watching the dredges of her tea settle at the bottom. In her drink she could see the shadow of herself reflected in its liquid depths, the downward turn of her mouth just visible. "Like it's that simple," she muttered. The mug was abruptly returned to the table; she rose to her feet and was out of the kitchen before Shizuku could react.

The older woman didn't move; there was a twitch as she fought the instinctive reaction to also get to her feet, but she stayed where she sat. Her husband gave her a curious look, as if questioning her inaction. Shizuku only shook her head. "She doesn't need a lesson right now, Seiji. When she's ready to listen, she'll come. Until then, we give her space."

ooOoo

Haru slammed onto her bed, sinking her face into her duvet in one undignified move. A groan escaped her lips and a little of the stress ebbed from her limbs. She pushed herself over and stared up instead at that same ceiling. Her eyes fluttered closed and she was just beginning to sink into early slumber when her mobile rang.

Too tired to consider doing anything other than answer it, she scooped the buzzing phone and clicked the answer button. The tension returned instantly to her when she heard the voice.

"_Haru, thank goodness. I haven't heard from you in days! How's did the rehearsal go? How are Shizuku and Seiji – still as mad as ever? Haru?_"

"Hello, Mum."

"_Haru, why haven't you been answering your phone? You're not still...? Are you still angry with me?_" Her mother's voice hitched, and just for a moment Haru felt tears prick her own eyes. She hated being angry with her mother, but she wouldn't back down from this. She couldn't. It was a matter of principle.

"What do you think, Mum?"

"_Haru, I... I don't know what to say_."

"Yes you do."

"_Haru... Sweetie... Phillip and I are in love... I had hoped you'd understand that_..."

"Really?" Haru felt her voice tighten, her resolve shake then re-establish itself with greater determination. "Really? Dad's been dead for less than a year and already you've found someone new and you expect me to be fine with that? To actually _understand_ it?" Her voice was shaking, but she was past caring.

"_We've all got to move on at some point–_"

"You seem to be doing so very fast."

"_I loved your father_," her mother promised. "_I loved him very much, Haru. But he wouldn't want me to spend the rest of my life in mourning for him; he knew that eventually we have to let go of the past and look to the future. And that's what I'm doing._"

"You could have waited," Haru growled. "You could have at least _waited_ before getting into a new relationship. That would have been the _decent_ thing to do." She was pushing all her mother's buttons and now the older woman was beginning to rise to the bait.

"_Haru, the decent thing to do would be to be happy for me_," her mother retorted. "_Don't tell me what I should do; I spent the last year trying to be okay, trying to deal with what had happened, and I spent too many days feeling like the world was falling apart because Daichi wasn't there._"

"You had me." The words were nearly whispered down the line. "You always had me, Mum."

"_I know_." Naoko's voice was tired. Tired and suddenly old. "_But I couldn't place all my problems on you. You have your own life now; you shouldn't be tied to me, not when you're out in the world, living and working and dreaming of your future. And I know you would try if I asked you, but you can't always stay here to help me with my grief._"

"But Phillip can?"

"_It's different. You know that, Haru_."

"How?"

"_Phillip fills a different role to you. Not more important, not more valuable, just different. We need a variety of people in our lives to fill different roles and Phillip is just a part of that. But, like you, he's important_."

"But why so soon?" Haru whispered. "It's only been a year."

"_You think it feels too soon?_" Naoko murmured. "_Before Phillip came into my life, the days felt like eternities. It felt as if I'd spent lifetimes without Daichi. It was hard for both of us, Haru_."

"But it still felt too quick..."

"_Love is like that, Haru. When you find someone, you'll know what I mean._"

"So you're saying that I can't understand because I haven't fallen for someone?" Haru demanded. Her previously vulnerability fell away, replaced with a stony facade.

"_It's something you have to feel for yourself._"

"Forget that. I'm happy the way I am. I don't need someone else for me to think my life's complete," Haru snapped. "Unlike you, I'm confident enough by myself."

"_Haru–_"

"So don't go lecturing me on love because I won't listen. I don't need it and I don't want it and I don't need or want you to tell me otherwise!" She slammed the phone to the side, ending the call.

"Haru?" Seiji was standing at the doorway of the guest room, eyes expressing the pity that Haru didn't want to see at that point. "Is everything okay?"

"No, and you know it. But I don't want to talk about it."

"Your mother loves you. And she loves your father."

Haru scoffed, but didn't meet the worried gaze of the man. "Loved," she icily corrected. She loved my father."

"She still does."

"But she's with Phillip."

"Because she loves him. Life can sometimes grant us a second chance at love and those who are smart listen to their hearts." When Haru didn't reply, Seiji only shook his head. "Shizuku said I shouldn't come to give you a lesson, but don't mistake advice for a lecture. Anyway, I only came up to tell you that we've been invited for a dinner out with friends tomorrow night and you're welcome to come."

"I'm fine."

"I suspected you might say that," he sighed. "We'll probably be back around midnight like last night, so don't stay up for us tomorrow." Haru heard him start to retreat back to the landing, but he paused. She waited for him to speak or leave, but he lingered for half a minute before speaking. She could almost hear the indecision whirring round in his head. Then.

"I wasn't Shizuku's first love. Think about that."


	4. Tuesday 4th December

"_Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveller back to his own fireside and quiet home!" ~ Charles Dickens._

x

Tuesday 4th December 2012: Childhood Days

Seiji's comment had left Haru more confused than she liked to let on. She had always thought of Shizuku and Seiji as the perfect couple – perhaps even more so than her own parents had been. There had never been a moment when Haru had seen regret or the wonder of what life might have been had another choice been made. There had been arguments, shouting and threats, but they had always fallen back together with a naturally uncanny ease. To think Shizuku had loved another...

Haru only found the courage to ask that evening, half an hour before Shizuku and Seiji were due to leave. She lingered at the door to Shizuku's writing office, aware that the woman was meant to be getting ready but had forsaken that for the greater pleasure of writing. Seiji was already ready, waiting in the kitchen with a cup of tea and the reassuring knowledge that Shizuku would drag herself away from her work when she needed to.

Shizuku turned on her swivelling chair, turning in one slightly fragmented motion to face her guest. "Evening, Haru. Has my husband sent you to chivvy me out?" She turned back to her computer screen, fingers almost moving across the keyboard instinctively. "He should know by now that I'll come when I'm done. And I won't let this make us too late."

"No, it's not that."

The tapping of keys stopped. Her voice must have conveyed more meaning than Haru was aware, because Shizuku turned back to her with a new, gentler expression. "What is it then?"

"Seiji said... that you loved someone else. Is that true?"

Haru had almost expected the woman to blush in true teenage style, but only a bittersweet smile crossed Shizuku's face. It was the same expression that passed when the Baron's full name cropped up; it brimmed with happy memories and sad emotions and an emptiness where a person once had been. "Yes. A long time ago."

"What happened to him?"

"He... is lost to us."

"What?" Out of all the answers Haru had been expecting, that wasn't one she had predicted or understood. "What do you mean by that? Is he... dead?"

Shizuku sighed, rubbing one hand tiredly over her eyes. "He's in a coma."

"I'm... I'm sorry. For how long?"

"For the past twenty years."

Haru's eyes widened. "He's still on life-support?"

Shizuku hesitated. Then she did a strange action. She started to shake her head, but then seemed confused by her own answer and it mutated into a shrug that allowed a small nod. "We don't know what happened to leave him like that." Her eyes drifted to the window, where early evening was already painting the sky a dusty grey. Where winter could be seen to arrive. "It was Christmas Eve and the rest of us were at a party. He had come back here to pick up something – I can't even remember it now, isn't that stupid? It was something like his wallet. Something like that, anyway. And he never came back. We returned here and found him unconscious for no reason we could understand. Not even the doctors could make sense of it."

"What had happened?"

"We don't know. He's still alive but... dead to the world, for all purposes."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

That same smile tugged at Shizuku's lips. "You would have liked him, Haru. Then again, everyone liked him. I'm sad you never got the chance to know him. He always knew what to say."

"Is that why you liked him?"

"Part of it, I guess. He was also the perfect gentleman and had a very good heart. He was the sort of person who was very easy to like."

Haru paused. "If... If he hadn't... you know... would you have married him instead of Seiji?" The idea was inconceivable, but part of her knew the answer before she even asked it. It was visible on Shizuku's face.

"Yes."

"You were in love?"

"Oh, Haru, don't look so incredulous. Yes, we were in love. Yes, we had talked about marriage. But then that happened and, for a while, I held out alone. I promised myself I would wait for him, that eventually he'd return to us. But he didn't and Seiji helped me deal with that. At first we were just friends helping one another get through a difficult time, but that became something more and you see the result now." Shizuku's smile flickered and returned stronger than before. "If I had kept my promise, I wouldn't be half so happy. And Humbert would understand that. In fact, I think he would have been outraged that I had denied myself happiness for a memory."

"But if... if... he came back," Haru started, morbidly curious and unsettled, "would you return to him?"

"No."

"Even though you were in love?"

"I would still love him, but I've forged a new life for myself. I'm happy. And what's important is to recognise how dear what you already have is."

"You don't wonder what life would have been like with him?"

"Oh, at first it was often. But the memories fade as new memories are formed."

Haru was struggling to understand. Struggling to fit this idea to her own mother's love. "So you're saying my mother's memories of my dad will fade – are fading?"

Shizuku sighed and shook her head. "No. Every memory is precious, but you learn to differ between the different sets of memories and appreciate both. Love isn't simple, Haru. There are many types and many ways it is expressed. I expect your friendships all differ, don't they? You don't feel the same way about all your friends, but they are all still your friends."

The smile strengthened and Shizuku stole a glance at the time. "But now I have to be going. I expect Seiji is nearly apoplectic that I'm leaving everything this late." She rose to her feet, sparing a quick hug for her goddaughter. "One day you'll understand, Haru. I promise."

ooOoo

Haru wasn't sure she ever would understand, but sometimes it's easier to nod and agree and pretend as if your mind is gullible enough to believe it all. Once the Amasawas left, that same sense of space flooded her and this time the need to dance, despite the day's earlier practice, was ticking away in the back of her mind. Finding some comfortable clothing, she made her way to the lounge and rifled through the music.

From Seiji's fondness of the more traditional methods of music, an old record player – well-kept and in working order – sat at the corner of the room, sleeves of paper hiding away a wealth of music in the form of the black records. From her time at the Amasawas', Haru had learnt how to work such a machine, although she was a little rusty now. Nonetheless, she located one of the scores from The Nutcracker and set it playing.

There was something much more moving about the old method of music, Haru decided. CDs and iPods lacked the depth that the record, with its ringed grooves and occasional scratches, could achieve. And with the music ringing through her bones, she performed a slightly looser version of her routine, sticking less to the rigorous ballet movements and just letting the music guide her. She grinned at the two figurines stood atop the table; Baron had already been left there by Shizuku, while Haru had brought her ballerina doll just before her dance.

The dancer had been a gift from a long-gone grandfather, something to recognise and celebrate her first dancing role when she had been much younger and, to the younger Haru, it had been something exceptionally perfect and beautiful. Something to treasure. And so the snowdrop ballerina had become a good luck charm of sorts, following her whenever she had a show and sometimes just accompanying her for reassurance. It was something familiar and inspiring to her – a bit like Baron was to Shizuku, she guessed.

It was late when she retired from her dancing. She slowed and fell into the same position as the snowdrop dancer, smile tilting her lips and eyes closed in satisfaction. She released a slow, steady breath and allowed the stress to drain away from her limbs.

Somewhere in the hallway, the grandfather clock struck midnight.

She opened her eyes, a little surprised at how late the hour was. She knew she could lose track of time and that it had already been late when she started, but there was something surprising when she considered how the day had slipped into the next with so little warning. She blinked, rolled her shoulders, and considered heading to bed. She was already moving to collect her ballerina when the draft made her shiver.

Only when she had exited the lounge did the importance of that draft strike her. She froze, already round the corner, and tiptoed back. Something warned her that caution would serve her well and it was correct, for again that same blue portal was materialising in the fireplace. She stared at it and again that same sense of familiarity rose in her. And then she remembered.

Shizuku's books had mentioned a blue portal. They had been portals between the Human World and the Cat Kingdom – or so her Baron novels had claimed. It seemed strange that she should see it twice and for the Baron to be present also. Then again, the portal itself was a whole new category of weird, so she didn't feel too tempted to count the coincidences.

And, like two nights ago, cats appeared. Haru wondered whether they had invaded the lounge the night before and she just hadn't been awake to see them or whether something had changed. She didn't like either idea particularly. The same fat longhair waddled through, belt and cat-sized sword just visible from Haru's vantage point. She needn't have worried about being spotted though; the cats were already charging at something out of her line of sight.

"Get him! Get him! Quickly now, before he escapes!"

Haru suspected that even if she hadn't been downstairs, the cat's cries would have woken her. Again, she briefly wondered whether she should be phoning someone – but no one would ever believe her. Cats? Invading a house?

Impossible.

And yet, there they were. She retreated behind the wall again, leaning against it and hoping that the Amasawas would return soon. In nerves, her fingers began to unlace her ballet pumps, easing the footwear from her aching soles. The sound of the cats rose, but now there was something new. Could she hear... fighting?

Fighting in a room empty except for the cats?

She edged herself back to the doorway and found one of the strangest images playing before her eyes. There, beneath the ridiculously early Christmas tree, a fully fledged battle of sorts was raging, with the entirety of the guard-robed felines verging towards...

"Baron?"

And there the figurine was, wielding his wooden cane with enough dexterity to ward off the approaching cats' weapons. Haru felt like she was part of a private showing of Shizuku's books, but this was real. This was before her, this was happening now. And she couldn't just sit back and watch.

The last thought came as a shock. The Baron in Shizuku's books was indomitable – he could ward off small armies with just his cane and wits, outwit politicians and talk his way out of anything. And yet... he wasn't winning. In fact, he was... _losing_.

The longhair was approaching the wooden figurine, sword idly swinging in his grasp. The Baron lost his cane and was forced to his knees by the soldiers. The advancing feline, mismatched eyes bulging madly, brought his sword to the figurine's neck. "Now, Baron, perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell me where my family is?"

"Do you really think I'd hand them over to a madman like you?" the Baron hissed. He winced as the blade's edge edged closer. A spark of fear flickered through his eyes. Fear. He was _afraid_.

"I don't think you have a choice." The sword trailed away from his neck and moved towards one of his ears. "I know toys don't bleed, but you still feel, don't you? You still feel pain. You can still scream." The longhair leaned in, crown wobbling dangerously atop his head. "I still remember the Queen's death... Oh, how she screamed–"

The Baron twisted away from his captors, but was held firmly in place. "Don't you speak of the Queen," he growled. "You haven't earned the right. So don't you _dare_ speak of her!"

"You think you can order me about? I think you forget just what peril you're in. Now, tell me, where is my family?"

The Baron spat. "Safe."

The cat's face contorted. One purple-grey paw raised to wipe away the spit. "You'll tell me, Baron. Eventually. Even if the answer has to come from your screaming lips." The blade was raised.

Haru didn't even think. Thinking would take too long. Already she had leapt into the room, screaming some vulgarities that would make her blush, and throwing the only thing she held in the direction of the fat cat. Her ballet pump.

But even without thinking, even acting on instinct, she was a second too late. There was a scream – two in fact, one from the Baron and then another, rather girly, scream from the crowned cat. Chaos broke out; she wasn't even aware of what was happening with the two felines – already the cat guards had risen up and were swarming towards her. As paws with claws extended and jaws of fangs approached her, she released another vulgarity, much to her own surprise, and fumbled back for something to defend herself with. Her hand found one of Shizuku's mugs on the side. The cup was hurled and knocked one cat out. More were replacing it already – Haru could hear the royal cat screaming for them to get her – and she stumbled back into the table. Her feet gave way and she fell to the floor, knocking against the table and rattling the items atop it.

Her figurine – the Snowdrop Dancer – toppled off. Ignoring the felines surging towards her, Haru twisted round to catch the dear doll, clutching it against her chest even as she kicked away more felines.

"Wait!"

The cats backed away. With her legs still shaking, Haru couldn't make a run for it. Only watch as the creatures parted way for their leader. He toddled forward and Haru stared. She seemed to be doing a lot of that recently.

The crown had been shattered; some of the gem remained, but it looked like the thing had smashed against the floor and left several shards behind, but that wasn't the only difference. Fur from his midsection down had gone, as if suddenly moulted. The cat's bulging eyes, though, contained a new malice. And there was something new, something sly. He returned her stare, and then glanced behind him.

Haru now spotted the cat figurine, kneeling across the room with one gloved hand covering his ear. He looked broken. Defeated.

The crowned cat began to laugh. "Oh, this is just _precious_. Truly precious. The girl has the same blood signature as your friends, Baron. The ones you left behind all those years ago. I guess that means you wouldn't want anything to happen to her, would you?" He looked back to Haru, smile widening. He sniffed, and a new amusement entered his eyes. "And I think we've even met before..."

Haru snuck another glance to the Baron. He was attempting to push himself to his feet, but there was a definite shaking in his limbs. Realising he wasn't going to fulfil Shizuku's stories any time soon, she returned her gaze to the cat before her. "Come another step and I'll kick you into next Epiphany."

"The babe has fire too! Excellent. Let me just... shrink you down to size first..." The crown began to glow; it spluttered and threw off blue sparks, but then tendrils shot out and seized the girl. The tentacles wrapped round her, sinking into her skin and pulling her apart. She tried to scream, but her body wasn't responding to her anymore. There was a moment of dizzy disorientation, then of floating and weightlessness and she stumbled off something soft to stagger to her feet. And then...

She opened her eyes.

The world had grown to monstrous proportions and the cat before her now towered over her. He leered. "Not so brave now, are you, babe?" He sprung forward and grabbed her wrist, dragging her forward before dropping her onto the floor. Her knees hit the ground with a strange, hollow sound. A vulnerable sound. Even as she looked at her hands, with her palms pressed against the floor, she noted something different about them. She hadn't just shrunk. Her skin now glimmered, like porcelain, and the clothes she wore were that of a ballerina.

Something very bad had happened.

The cat grabbed her hair – now pinned up into a bun – and dragged her back to her feet. He yelled in the direction of the wooden figurine. "Baron! Where is my family? Tell me, or your friends will suffer another loss!" She was shaken; her feet skidded about on the ground and her balance threatened to tip her. She staggered, but this time used her momentum to dig her elbow into the stomach of her captor.

He howled and she was released. Instinct kicked in and she was running before the crowd of cats could even react. Something curled around her wrist and she almost threw it off – but then she registered the presence of fingers. Of the form of a hand, instead of a paw.

The Baron spared a small, apologetic smile. "Sorry." He raised his free hand, revealing a shard of the crown, and another portal opened. This was significantly smaller than the fireplace one, and trembled as if liable to break at a moment's notice. Regardless, the Baron sped forward, bringing Haru with him, and leapt through the portal.

Haru snatched one last glance behind her before it disappeared in a sea of blue. The cats were in absolute chaos, shouting and yowling and heading straight for the escapees, but what caught her eyes was the body slumped against the corner, as if asleep.

Her body.


	5. Wednesday 5th December

_There has been only one Christmas - the rest are anniversaries. ~ W.J. Cameron_

x

Wednesday 5th December 2012: Anniversaries

By the time the Amasawas came home, the house was quiet. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. And certainly not Haru, whom the Amasawas assumed was sleeping peacefully in her room.

They found her that morning.

At first they didn't know what to make of the situation. The lounge was a mess – there were scratch marks on the floor and the furniture and Shizuku located the remains of her mug in one corner. But Haru was sleeping in the corner. Or at least, they assumed she was sleeping. But then she wouldn't wake up.

"It's happened again," Shizuku whispered. Her voice wavered and she looked to her husband. "It's happened again, Seiji. We've lost Haru."

Seiji hugged his wife close. "Now, now, Shizuku, we don't know that. I've called an ambulance; they should be here any moment now. Shizuku... _Shizuku_." He brought her head up, locking his eyes onto hers. "We don't know what's happened here. It looks like Haru may have fallen and knocked herself out; when the doctors arrive she'll be fine. That's all that's happened. She just knocked herself out and the doctors will deal with that. She'll be fine."

"And if she's not? What if she's like Humbert?"

"She _won't _be." Seiji tutted lightly, trying to calm his wife's fears. "Why would the same thing happen twice?"

Shizuku hiccupped, her fear and worries bubbling up in that one action. "Baron. We brought him back. He was here–"

"Shizuku..."

"He was here–"

"And how would a wooden figurine have any affect?" Seiji demanded. "So he disappeared the same night we lost Humbert–"

"Isn't it strange that we lost Haru when the Baron returned?"

Seiji sighed. He hugged his wife closer. "We don't know that we have lost Haru yet, dear. Give it time."

ooOoo

Time was given, but Haru still didn't wake.

The doctors reassured the Amasawas, giving examples of only week-long or even day-long coma patients, but Haru didn't wake that day. Eventually they were ferried out, with promises to contact them if anything changed. The doctor found Seiji sitting in the corridor while Shizuku paced the length of the hallway.

"Mr Amasawa, we have tried contacting Miss Yoshioka's mother–"

"And you can't get hold of her? She's not at home," Seiji told the man. He watched his wife continue to pace. "She's coming here tonight; we'll tell her the news then."

The doctor spared a glance for Shizuku. "Is your partner coping?"

"She suffered a similar loss many years ago."

"If she needs therapy–"

"She doesn't need therapy," Seiji interjected. "She needs Haru to come back." His eyes dimmed a little. "Twenty years ago, Christmas Eve, her boyfriend fell into a coma. She... associated her loss with a wooden figurine that disappeared that same night, somehow thinking it caused or would explain what had happened. We found the figurine yesterday and... well, I think she believes the figurine has caused us to lose another friend."

"I'm sorry."

Seiji shook his head. "She was coping fine – but this, this has brought it all back. She still misses Humbert sometimes..."

The doctor's eyes just widened a fraction. "Humbert? Humbert Gikkingen?"

The man nodded. "The very same."

"The coma miracle patient? That Humbert Gikkingen?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm... I'm very sorry for your loss."

Seiji's eyes glazed over, perhaps with past memories. Before any of them had lost a friend to the mysterious coma. "It always seemed very weird that anyone would refer to his state as miraculous. It seems more trapped to me. The family couldn't even make the decision to let him go; even after the life-support systems were turned off, he still continued to live. Now we're all left wondering and hoping that one day he'll return. We know he won't, but it never allowed any closure. We couldn't even have a funeral."

"I'm sorry, Mr Amasawa."

Seiji sighed and rose to his feet. "So everyone keeps saying. I fear that breaking the news to Haru's mother will be the worst moment yet though."

ooOoo

Naoko didn't even speak. She couldn't. Her eyes widened and her mouth flapped uselessly, but she didn't speak. A wheezing sound rattled through her lungs as the words refused to come, and then she crumpled to the floor. Her body was shaking as tears streamed from her eyes.

"What happened?" she rasped. She looked up to her friends. "What happened to my baby?"

"We don't know." Shizuku knelt down beside her friend, taking Naoko's hands in hers and attempting a reassuring squeeze. "But the doctors said she's stable. She's alive."

"But not awake," Naoko whimpered. "And they don't know when she'll wake up, do they? They don't even know whether she will ever wake up. It's Humbert all over again."

"We don't know that either," Seiji assured. He knelt beside his wife. "Naoko, there's no reason to assume that. All we can do is hope."

"What if she never wakes up? What-What...?"

"Naoko..."

"What if the last conversation we ever had was an argument?" Naoko demanded. "What if that's my last memory of Haru? I should have taken the conversation slower; I shouldn't have pushed her..."

"Naoko, don't say that." Seiji's cool tone smoothed away the worst of the tears. "You had no way of knowing what was going to happen and that conversation was important. You can't spend your entire life taking cautious conversations because you're afraid it might be your last. You and Haru needed to sort out what was going on between you–"

"But we didn't," the redhead sobbed. "I just made it worse..."

"No, you didn't. You just made Haru think," Shizuku insisted. "And thinking is no bad thing. Listen, give it time. Haru will return to us. She... She's a strong-hearted girl. She'll pull through."

"We thought the same for Humbert."

"And Humbert refused to die," Shizuku instantly replied. Her voice was flat, like it hurt but she wouldn't let it show. "Remember? When the family decided to turn off the life-support? He just carried on living, as if nothing had changed. He's still in the hospital, still breathing, still looking the same as he did twenty years ago."

"What if that's the same fate as Haru?"

"It means there's hope," Shizuku said. "If Humbert carried on living even after the life-support was turned off, then that means he plans on returning at some point. It's the only way to explain it."

"But Humbert isn't awake. He isn't aware. How...?"

"Like many things, we don't know or understand. But it's a miracle of sorts."

Naoko rubbed at her red-rimmed eyes, trying – and failing – to clear them of tears. "Her doll. Where's her figurine? She would want that with her in the hospital." She rose unsteadily to her feet, wobbling a bit but managing. "She always takes it with her. Where is it?"

"It'll probably be in her room–"

And before Seiji could add anything else, Naoko was stumbling in the direction of the guest room. That task helped to focus her mind on something other than her lost daughter. Seiji looked to Shizuku, and then followed the distraught redhead. Shizuku stayed where she was, sparing one look to the lounge.

The Baron had gone.

And somehow, she knew the Snowdrop Dancer would be too.

She closed her eyes.

"Look after her, Baron."


	6. Thursday 6th December

_Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas. ~ Johnny Carson_

x

Thursday 6th December 2012: Lose

The sun was uncannily bright when Haru next woke up.

Unfairly so, when she had just been knocked unconscious and was only waking now.

On passing through the blue portal – which had rattled and quaked and seemed, on the whole, generally unsafe – she had fallen into an unfamiliar world; a rather dark, dim world and had promptly blacked out. Now, though, morning was dawning and Haru had little idea how long she'd been unconscious for. She tilted her head, unfamiliar with her surroundings, and spotted a familiar feline head.

Except now it wasn't figurine-sized. It was human-sized. Still feline, but much larger than what she was expecting.

She staggered away, limbs still dragging from their sleep, and propped herself up against a tree. She had no idea where she was, what she was or how to get back home, but the individual before her was very definitely the Baron. An unconscious one, at that.

She resisted the temptation to prod him with the edge of her foot, determining that this Baron wasn't the same one as Shizuku's Baron and this, she decided, made him unpredictable. This Baron had the same streak of improvisation as Shizuku's, but he also seemed much more... human. Much more fallible. She inched a hair's width closer, taking in his face.

It was a cat's face. There was no two ways about it. He was undeniable, unmistakably feline. Which made the fact that he appeared somewhat human all the more strange. Her head tilted to one side, so she faced him at the same angle, and now she noticed his ear.

She didn't know how she could have missed it earlier. One tawny ear remained intact, perfectly normal – or as normal as a wooden figurine was going to get – flattened against the ground where it was pressed. The other though...

Where the other should have been there was only a roughly-carved stump of wood.

She stumbled back, first in revulsion, and then her mind informed her of the lack of blood. There was no red, no matted fur or oozing skin; not even any blood. There was only the splintering wood.

Just what to expect from a figurine.

Overcome with a new curiosity, she stopped her backpedalling and instead approached the unconscious individual. Her hand reached out to touch the remaining stump of wood, to see whether the remaining ear really was just wood, when a hand grabbed her wrist.

She screeched and pushed herself away. The hand released her and slumped back to the ground.

"I would... greatly appreciate it if my ear was given peace." One of the Baron's eyes flickered open. The eye struggled to focus on the girl before it, rolling a little at the effort before finally fixing on Haru. When it had stored away Haru's appearance, it fell shut. The Baron's body lost its tension and Haru wondered whether he had fallen unconscious again.

"Does... Does it hurt?"

The eye opened. "Not anymore." It shut. "It did. A lot."

Haru hesitated, then leant towards the figurine. "Are you okay now?"

The Baron heaved a long breath, fingers and shoulders twitching as if considering the task of pushing himself off the ground. "I will have to be." The eye opened, and this time it stayed open. Haru suddenly felt much too close to the wounded individual, but his eye caught her and kept her. "After all, we need to get you to safety."

Haru blinked, then finally found the strength to pull back. She sat upright, legs crossed beneath the extended tutu she seemed to be wearing. "I've been thinking about that. I need to get back – I've no idea how much time has passed and I'm sure people will be worried about me – so if you can just summon up another portal and drop me home..."

The Baron's face changed to one of pity. An expression that Haru decided she didn't want to see. He eventually got round to pushing himself off the forest floor, brushing away the snow that had fallen on his face. Haru was surprised by this realisation; she hadn't even registered the snow that was gently fluttering down from the whitewashed sky, the same snow that had turned the bare forest before her into the winter wonderland it was now. She hadn't even felt the cold. Not the way she should feel cold, anyway.

"I'm sorry, Miss Haru–"

"How do you know my name?" More to the point, what was he sorry about?

One gloved hand was gestured uselessly in the air. "I heard Shizuku and Seiji. But I'm sorry, Miss Haru. The crown shard only had a limited amount of magic without being connected to the crown itself; it won't get you home. It barely had enough to summon a portal for two, not even enough to get us to our destination. And, even if I could return you home, you still have the problem of your current form."

"What?" She had known something was off – something was wrong – but she'd wished, desperately wished, that it had been paranoia or fear or... _something_. Anything. She badly hoped to be wrong.

She was right.

"Miss Haru, have you seen yourself recently?"

"No, I've been unconscious for the past... goodness knows how long. Why?

"Look at yourself, Miss Haru."

Her eyes trailed away from the Baron, slowly focusing on her feet, then her dress, then her hands... She still wore the same white and blue dress, with the lengthened tutu that fell to her knees... a startlingly familiar dress, she couldn't help but think. Her fingers fiddled with the hem of the skirt, suddenly noticing the porcelain feel to the material. Her eyes jumped to her hands, which held the same china gleam, and then her hands flew to her face. Gone was the familiar soft skin, warm with the flow of blood beneath, gone were the stray strands of hair that usually trailed down and tickled her face. Instead her fingers met a smooth, cool surface.

"H-How?"

"The Cat King." The Baron straightened his form and crossed his legs. His expression darkened. "He placed a spell on you that placed your mind and soul into the figurine you are now. A cure has never been found."

"So I'm stuck like this?"

"Please, Miss Haru, calm down. Our first priority is to get somewhere safe. When we have achieved that, then we can discuss your future. Until then, it would be dangerous to postpone our progress." As if to drive his point home, he rose to his feet. He staggered a little, and Haru guessed he wasn't as recovered as she had first believed. She rose to her feet also, but she wasn't about to let the conversation go just yet.

"So that's it? I live out the rest of my days as a china doll, stuck in some distorted version of Narnia, and do _what_, exactly? I don't even know where we are!"

"We are in the Toy Kingdom." The Baron had started moving through the snowy landscape, past bare trees and curving mounds of white where the ground was uneven or rocky. "A once prosperous kingdom."

"Doesn't look that prosperous right now," Haru muttered. She followed her sole companion, painfully aware that the forest all looked the same to her. "Looks downright desolate. Isn't the Toy Kingdom meant to be bright and sunny and where all the forgotten toys go to party?"

"The Kingdom has fallen into ruin in the last half-decade," Baron informed her. His voice seemed to tighten. "Ever since it... lost its monarch, the Cat King has taken over in his mad desire for power and, in his greed, destroyed this world." The Baron's head turned slightly, so Haru could see one eye of her guide. "The Toy Kingdom is a kingdom that relies on its monarch, like the Human World relies on its sun. With the monarch lost, this world has been slowly perishing, and eventually it will be barren. The Toy Kingdom needs a monarch."

"Why doesn't someone just appoint another king or something then?"

"The monarch is always chosen by their predecessor. When one steps down, they pass on the magic that sustains this world onto the next. The last monarch... died before this could be done. With no trace of that magic left, with no one with that magic to support this kingdom, this world cannot survive. Another five years and this place will be a wasteland."

"So there's nothing that can be done?"

"Unless the last monarch left magic in someone, then no. And for five years no one has made that claim. For five years this world has been falling apart and no one has stepped up. I doubt there is a single toy in this kingdom who wouldn't step up if they could."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not as if you can change its fate."

Haru opened her mouth, paused, and saw the truth in his words. Tired, confused and sick of her situation, she lapsed into silence. The Baron seemed quite happy to be left alone with his thoughts, so Haru merely followed behind him, wondering how he knew the route and hoping that he really did know the route and wasn't just making it appear so. Her eyes latched onto the severed ear again, mixed curiosity and revulsion stirring in her stomach.

"How come it doesn't hurt anymore?"

The remaining ear flickered back. He didn't instantly answer and, for a moment, Haru thought he was going to ignore her question. But then he said, "I assume you're referring to the ear?"

"Well, yes."

"There are certain rules to being a toy that you will soon learn. You are limited to the material you are made of; you break yourself, you're stuck like that. You have no need to breath, not even to talk, although most toys prefer to do so, and you will tire less easily."

Haru's mind was still fixated on the ear. "So your ear will always be like that?"

She saw the hesitation. "Yes."

"You're lying," Haru said. "There is a way to fix you, isn't there?"

"There used to be."

Haru didn't ask, but she hoped her silence spoke for itself. Eventually the Baron caved.

"When the monarch was still around, when magic was still in this kingdom, we would heal naturally over time. Slowly, but we would heal. Those of flesh and blood would heal faster too. Those of us with wounds that needed help would go to the monarch and have their wounds healed there. But now the monarch is gone, we are stuck forever as broken as we become."

"Wow. This monarch really was important to you guys..."

"More than you can imagine."

Haru drew quiet again, listlessly trudging through the snow. She watched the white carpet shift with every footstep, the snow sliding off her china feet, and she once again became struck by the lack of feeling in her skin. The snow felt only mildly cool. She wondered whether that was a perk of being a toy or just that the snow in the Toy Kingdom was naturally so.

"Don't toys get wear and tear?" The question came rather suddenly, inspired as she watched her feet kick away the drifts of snow. "You know, like the cold would make stone crack or water will rot wood. So toys can't last that long."

"Toys don't last forever," the Baron acknowledged. "However, here in the Toy Kingdom we are hardier than in any other world. Or, at least, we used to be. The magic sustained us. We still became old, but at a slower pace. Humans suffer wear and tear too," he reminded his charge. "The elements take their toll on all things."

"But the snow doesn't even feel cold here..."

"You are a toy. You do not feel the same way as you did when you were human. Our senses, especially taste and touch, are much duller. Our hearing, sight and smell are not that dissimilar, although I dare say my hearing is sharper than yours. Or," he suddenly added, and Haru realised he'd forgotten about his severed ear, "it used to be."

More questions rose up in Haru's mind, but eventually she limited it down to two. She didn't want to annoy her guide before barely a day had passed. And already she had managed to remind him of one loss; she had a feeling this figurine had more secrets that only time would reveal. "Where are we going?" She probably should have asked this question sooner. "You said we were going somewhere safe. Where?"

"Out of this forest. This is one of the worst affected regions of the Toy Kingdom; the snowstorm has lessened, but if we stay it is sure to worsen." His eye flickered back to Haru. "Our senses may be dulled, but we are not impervious to cold. When the storm intensifies, you will know about it."

"Only one of the worse?"

"Some regions became deserts. Others flooded. Some, the trees died and the good soil was washed away by the rain and they eventually became barren, cracks forming in the ground where it had dried beyond repair. Even if a monarch somehow appears, it will take many years before this world recovers. Many places won't recover at all."

"And yet... toys still stay here?"

"This is their home. They will hope to the point of foolishness."

"Will you stay here?"

The Baron paused. His step faltered for a moment, so brief that Haru almost missed it. He turned his head so his face met Haru's. "I have a responsibility to the toys here. I will not abandon them." And then he was walking again at his usual pace, perhaps even faster, and Haru realised this discussion had been brought to an abrupt end. She picked up her feet and followed her guide.

She moved onto her next, final question. "What happens if I get broken? Seriously broken," she added, "like I get shattered or something?"

The Baron didn't falter this time.

"Don't."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Happy St Nicholas' Day! Although, this chapter wasn't really that happy, but whatever...**


	7. Friday 7th December

_One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly. ~ Andy Rooney_

x

Friday 7th December 2012: Glorious Messes

The knowledge that she wouldn't tire as easily, now being porcelain and lacking any of the muscles to develop cramp, didn't really help. Her mind – her human mind – still informed her that she had been walking for over eight hours now, and that she should be resting. That she shouldn't be pushing her limbs to this limit – a limit that now no longer existed – and so, even if there was no physical tiredness, she knew she needed rest. It had been growing dark when they had started walking, but now the darkness was absolute. She had a feeling it was now the morning of the next day.

She had asked the Baron whether they should stop a while back, but he had only told her that they needed to carry on walking, and left it at that. She had considered disagreeing, but then she decided against it. The Baron's replies to her numerous questions had gradually become shorter and curter and Haru had sensed that her guide wanted to retreat into his own mind. The Baron, however, had offered an explanation.

"This forest is dangerous, especially at night. If we rested, we would risk becoming caught in a snowstorm or attracting unwanted attention. The sooner we are onto the Snowplains, the better."

"Un... Unwanted attention?" Haru queried. That didn't sound good. The Baron went on to confirm that.

"Not all toys are friendly. Since this world has fallen into ruin, some toys have become almost feral. As long as we keep on moving, however, we should be fine; the toys have a reputation for mostly attacking only resting wanderers."

"Mostly?"

"I cannot guarantee it."

If Haru was still human, she suspected hackles would have risen on the back of her neck. But her china neck lacked the ability, and so she only experienced the phantom feeling skimming her skin. Her ears strained in the darkness, picking out the sound of the Baron's footsteps and the muffled patter of snow, but now she listened out for anything more... animalistic. She suspected that, even if they stopped, she would have problems sleeping now. Assuming that toys slept. She had pitched this question to the Baron a couple of hours earlier and had been told that, while toys do not sleep in the same way to humans, they still rested. Even the mental mind of toys needed respite, it appeared. She had asked whether toys dreamt. The answer was the cryptic reply, "Of sorts."

"And if we are attacked? What then?"

"Then we defend ourselves."

She noticed he failed to explain just _how_ they were meant to do that. She just hoped he would fare better in a future fight than he did against the Cat King's soldiers. Because she was now undeniable smaller and she couldn't just wade in like she had before.

"How big is this forest? Have we got far before we are out of this place?"

"I believe we were relatively lucky. The crown shard dropped us on the edge of the Feral Forest, so we should be out by sunrise."

"Hm. What's with all the names?" Haru's resolve to resist asking questions, once again, failed her. "You called one place the Snowplains, and here the Feral Forest... If this world was a toy paradise before it lost its monarch and fell apart, then why has it got such... gloomy names?"

"This world has been fighting off the invasion of the Cat Kingdom for over twenty years; even before the monarch was lost five years ago, areas were already beginning to suffer from the fighting. This forest, once the epitome of a fairytale woodland, was already amassing the desperate, desolate toys that had been injured or broken in the war itself or just the crossfire. Other names were given more recently; the Snowplains were once just the Plains, rolls of expansive fields, but the monarch was lost and the snow came and everything changed. Names change. Names become obsolete or outdated and a new name comes along. War changes life."

"How is the war going then? Who's winning?"

The Baron released a short, derisive laugh that caught Haru unawares. "Winning?" he echoed. His voice sounded like he had temporarily looked back to her, despite the pitch black surroundings. "Who wins in a war?" He had returned his gaze to the forest before him. "There are only ever losers." And then he appeared to regain his normal manner, his voice losing its scolding tone, and he added, a little softer, "The war has ebbed away into a matter of day-to-day survival for those in the Toy Kingdom. When the monarch was lost, the Cat King declared this world his, but realised too late his mistake in... dispatching the monarch. Now the toys live in misery in a ruined world, while the Cat King makes a show of ownership of this world, punishing anyone who tries to stand up to him."

"Like... you?"

She could almost see the bittersweet smile that slipped onto the Baron's face. It was audible in his very tone. "The King hates me for a number of reasons, Miss Haru. But I suspect you'd already guessed that."

Haru walked on for a little longer in silence, trying to understand how one wooden figurine could have made such an enemy. It was barely a few minutes, but the sky was beginning to lighten by the time the china ballerina found the courage to ask more. "What happened?"

She could now see the vague outline of the Baron; his top hat and one-eared head silhouetted by the steadily lightening grey sky. The trees were black forms rising stoutly from the ground, like black ghouls or apparitions of the night. Her eyes focused solely on her guide though, watching his head twitch slightly, even as his top hat trembled subtly atop his head.

"I'm sorry, Miss Haru? What happened when?"

"What happened to make the Cat King hate you so much?"

"It's... a long story."

"We have time."

"A muddled story."

"So you just expect me to trust you on principle? Because I'm travelling around with the figurine that had the Cat King and his entire regiment chasing after him and I'd rather like to know just how much trouble I'm in for saving your butt." She had become a little too blunt for her own liking, but she didn't have the patience for that right now and she wanted answers. She was tired and snow-covered and rather freaked out by their surroundings and, more than anything, _she wanted answers_.

"I see your point." The Baron stopped, turning on his feet to face the young woman. With the light creeping from behind him, his expression was shadowed and rather hard to read. "Miss Haru, I have meddled with the Cat King's affairs several times. He is, in fact, the reason I am the way I am..."

Haru wanted to ask what he meant by that, but the feline continued.

"Nonetheless, we are currently at cross-purposes because... I have his family."

"What?!"

There was a roar from between the shadowed trees. Something large, metallic and menacing leapt out into their patch of the woods. And it didn't look too friendly.

"What?!"

"Move!"

The Baron caught her wrist and dragged her to the side, just bringing them out of the creature's leap. Haru skidded back, slipped, and landed in a shallow snowdrift. At that point, the Baron had already released her and so wasn't dragged along with her. He snatched a glance behind him, cane already drawn out before him as if it'd make much difference, and growled something at her.

"What?"

"Run!" he repeated. "For goodness sake, _run_, girl!"

"Where?"

"Does it really matter? Anywhere! Just _away_ from here!"

Haru was already staggering to her feet when she got her first glimpse of the creature.

It was indeed large, something the size – to her, at least – of a rhinoceros, although its features were more wolf-like than rhino. What she had mistaken for metal was instead plastic designed to appear metallic, with the gleam long gone from time and wearing, but it still had its claws. As Haru found her balance and was preparing to run for her life, she saw that the creature was a transformer toy of sorts. An old, unbranded toy; the type that never came from a movie or series but was inspired by the popularity of its predecessors. The joints were worn and weary and Haru doubted it could 'transform' back into its other form anymore, but it still had the cubic look of something designed to be double as a car or vehicle, with the odd assortments of limbs weirdly styled to twist into vehicle shape.

Overall, it looked old and... _distorted_.

And it was going for the Baron.

She should be running. She knew that. She should be running for her life, like any sane sort of person, but instead she was glued to the spot like an idiot. She knew that, if they survived this, the Baron would give her a scolding. She knew that the Baron would have a much harder time of battling his way out of this mess if he had to keep an eye out for her, but still her feet would not move. Her mind was replaying the scene from that night; he had looked so beaten, so defeated, and she realised that was what plagued her now. She couldn't see a repeat of that. Not again.

And he couldn't defeat this creature – this monstrosity – she doubted even Shizuku's Baron could. Shizuku's Baron _might_, she admitted, although it would be through some clever tactic or scheme that would only become clear once the beast was overcome, through some weakness that had been mentioned earlier. But they had only just seen this creature; Haru certainly had no idea of its weaknesses.

And this time a ballet pump wouldn't cut it.

Neither would the Baron's cane either, it seemed. The slender carving of wood was snatched up in the creature's jaws, snapped, and tossed to one side. It regarded the now weapon-less figurine with a cold, calculating stare. Snow-white eyes stared out from a narrow face, the head once painted a blinding white but time and the elements had worn it away into an aging grey. It pounced and, although the Baron was fast, he wasn't fast enough. With claw-tipped paws, it pinned the wooden feline to the ground.

Again, Haru felt herself move before the mental command had even passed her mind, let alone be approved by her brain. She found herself suddenly atop the beast, balanced on its back and hammering her china hands into it. Luckily, she appeared to be sturdier than the average piece of porcelain, because her hands remained intact. It didn't, however, improve the creature's mood.

It sprang back, thankfully away from the Baron, but was proceeding to do rise up and stomp about in an attempt to throw the irritating passenger off its back. Haru, who hadn't even thought about her actions, let alone think any further than this point, found herself to be in a rather precarious position; it was moving too fast for her to get off without falling or hitting something (and probably breaking herself) but if she didn't do something she would eventually be thrown off and would _certainly_ crack something. Someone was screaming. When she started to struggle for breath, she realised it was her.

She curled her legs around the creature's belly, doing her best to remain atop the beast, and found the world to be spinning as the wolf looped round in a new attempt to throw her off. She leant forward, hoping to gain some balance confidence, and almost caught her fingers in the wolf's gap between head and body.

She withdrew her hand just in time to avoid a very painful moment, but found her eyes fixed on the gap. Between the head and the body, a rather awkward joint rested. A joint, she guessed, that was once adapted to spin round and mutate the wolf into its secondary – or primary, she supposed – form. Missing another close fall, she located the Baron.

"A rock! Throw me a rock!"

The wooden figurine nodded his understanding and ran for a nearby stone. She was grateful that he hadn't queried her reasoning, instead just fetching it for her, but she still wasn't sure how much longer she could stay on. The Baron had previously been trying to distract the creature from its passenger, but the wolf had been too intent on throwing her off to give him much attention. The beast was moving too fast, too unpredictably, for the Baron to be able to intervene.

He snatched the rock from the ground and tossed it – surprisingly accurately – in the direction of Haru and the wolf. She managed to catch it – just. She almost slipped in doing so, but her palm made contact with the stone and she brought into her joined hands. Now she was definitely slipping; the world was beginning to tilt, and she had no doubts that, if she fell now, the creature would take great pleasure in stomping on her.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered.

She slammed the rock into the joint.

The creature shuddered. A visible shiver rippled through its body and for a moment, just a moment, it was paralysed by the contact. Haru brought the rock up and repeated the action. This time something began to snap in the joint. The beast stumbled to one side, its paws beginning to lose grip in the snow, and Haru found the world now tilting to a dangerously slanted angle. She smashed the stone one last time into the neck. The joint snapped.

The head was the first to hit the ground. The body seemed to miss the memo concerning the head's absence, and stumbled a little bit longer, but it began to topple eventually. Haru was scrambling in an effort to get off the beast before it fell, but gravity had caught her and now she was going down with it. Still saddled on it, Haru hit the ground before the headless toy.

She lay there, stunned by the fall and struggling to breathe having forgotten that, being a toy, she had no need to. She was still seeing two of everything when she spotted the Baron to her side.

The two Barons were wearing identical expressions, although Haru's addled mind couldn't name the emotions themselves. Instead her gaze moved onto the beast before her, which should be pinning her right leg down when it fell. This was the point where she realised it wasn't for, _somehow_, the Baron had intervened just in time to wedge one half of his broken cane between the wolf and the ground. It propped it up just enough to stop the creature's body from crushing the ballerina, although it was beginning to protest at this misuse. Only the Baron's additional support was stopping it from breaking.

"Miss Haru, would you kindly consider moving before either myself, or my cane, gives way?"

Haru's eyes widened and abruptly she was scrambling away. Once Haru was no longer in danger of being crushed, the Baron moved away from the beast's body. The cane, deciding it'd had quite enough of this tomfoolery, snapped and the toy fell to the snow-covered ground with a heavy thud. Haru couldn't resist staring. If the Baron hadn't intervened, her right leg would be completely smashed to pieces.

"Thank you."

The Baron simply tipped his hat in acknowledgement. Now Haru was out of harm's way and not quite so dizzy anymore, she took the time to examine his expression. It was the same as last time and, like before, she was struggling to place it.

She was undeniably in trouble. She could have guessed that without looking at his expression, but there was something else there too. Several other things, in fact. Surprise – that emotion wasn't too hard to spot or understand – but something akin to respect lay hidden beneath it. Haru almost smiled to herself. She had earned his respect. Or some, anyway.

There was a snapping, growling noise from one side and, on locating the source of the sound, Haru almost fell over herself in an attempt to put distance between herself and it. "It... That..." A few more disjointed words fell from her lips; enough to move the Baron's attention to the same item.

The wolf's head was still moving. While its body was as lifeless as any inanimate object, the head was snapping its jaws, snarling and growling at the two other toys, promising pain if either came within biting distance. Less disturbed than Haru, the Baron stepped forward and kicked the detached head away. It flew through the air, howling.

"Miss Haru–"

"Since you've just saved me from losing my leg, Baron Gikkingen, I think you can forgo the 'Miss' part," Haru interceded. Her mind was, even now, trying to wrap around the idea of the removed head still living and trying not to question too much into the logic of toy life. She really didn't want to think too hard about something similar happening to her. Or even wonder how it was possible. From what she'd so far gleamed, logic and science were replaced with magic and rules here.

"Understood. Firstly, Haru, I cannot vocalise the recklessness of your actions back there. You could have suffered a lot more than a shattered leg; you could have smashed yourself to pieces by intervening. Please don't try to break yourself in future."

"It worked, didn't it?" Haru mumbled, and she felt, rather than saw, the glare.

"Only just."

"It wasn't like you had anything under control back there," Haru added, still not quite finished.

"Neither did you." He sighed and remained where he was, sitting smartly with legs crossed and his top hat perfectly perched on the crown of his head. "Nonetheless, I must thank you for your action. However reckless, it was certainly brave and you had no reason to put yourself at risk for my sake."

Haru laughed. "Of course I did." She grinned. "Even if the entire Cat Kingdom is after you, you are still my guide and I still need you to get us out of this forsaken forest." She paused, and her humour faded slightly. "Thank you again," she repeated, "for saving me back there. I..." She trailed off as the image of what could have happened to her leg rose in her mind. She repressed the shudder. "I'm glad you did."

"You're welcome." He rose to his feet and, in the same manner as Shizuku's Baron, he offered a hand to the young woman. "Come. We're nearly out of this forest, I promise. And, for future reference, you can call me Baron."

Haru's smile returned. "Okay, Baron." And for a moment, just a moment, Haru felt like things were beginning to look up.

And then a stabbing pain ripped across her palm.

She flinched back instinctively, withdrawing her hand to herself. Baron looked startled by the action, perhaps even a tender bit pained, but there was the sad smile of understanding. "I'm sorry." His proffered hand moved away. "I had forgotten that my appearance was... that my appearance takes some getting used to," he eventually decided on.

Haru wanted to deny that, but she was still fighting back the outward show of pain, suddenly afraid of what that selfsame pain meant. When Baron had turned his back to her, she risked a fleeting look, examining the smooth porcelain skin of her palm with a flickering glance. A curving, but relatively shallow crack ran along her wrist to the edge of her index finger, like some mocking crease line. She hadn't escaped from her battle unharmed then. She could only guess she had acquired the crack upon catching the rock.

"Miss Haru?"

"I thought I asked you to call me Haru," the ballerina murmured, but Baron made no show of having heard her. She turned her palm away, curling her fist so the crack was hidden before she met her companion's gaze. "Yes?"

Baron was watching her with an uncannily perceptive look. "Is everything okay?"

She clenched her fist tighter.

"Of course," she lied.


	8. Saturday 8th December

"_I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas, with a note on it saying, 'toys not included'." ~ Bernard Manning._

x

Saturday 8th December 2012: Toys

The Snowplains were a thing of beauty and barrenness combined. The flutter of snow flickered between the absent-minded, glorious and festive flakes of gentle snowfall and the sudden harshness of winter winds driving the selfsame snow into their backs. Haru discovered Baron had been accurate about her temperature perceptiveness; the storm dropped the temperatures to new depths and she began to wish for more than the ballerina outfit she was awkwardly clad in.

It could be seen that the Snowplains had once been simple, green plains; the ground dipped and rose with the same rolling action of gently-sloping hills, now covered in an absolute layer of white and the view smeared by the thick and thin flurries of snowfall.

"How far until we're there?" Haru was surprised that her voice didn't shake with the cold. But, then again, she didn't have the muscles to spasm at the cold, nor the lungs to tremble at the frigid air entering them. It would take a while to become accustomed to these strange absences of feeling. Her skin – porcelain and smooth – merely informed her of the cold; now it impressed upon her the ferocity of the cold and she doubted she'd be able to keep on going if she was still human.

"Not long now. We're going through the narrower strip of the Snowplains. Our destination is past those hills." The wooden figurine motioned to the nearest set of hills. And then, perhaps realising that Haru hadn't spoken in a while prior to her question and that that was unusual in itself, he glanced back. "Miss Haru, are you managing? We are nearly there, but if you need to rest..."

"No." Haru folded her arms across her chest, hoping that it'd protect what little warmth she'd maintained. Her skin was almost as cold as the snow; china didn't keep the warmth in nearly as well as normal skin did. "The sooner we're there, the sooner we're out of this weather."

Baron's eyes softened a little, despite the chilling weather. "You're doing very well, Miss Haru. You are made of a sturdier mould than many would be in your situation."

"Yeah, well, in my situation there isn't much to do apart from keep moving," Haru muttered.

"We're nearly there. Just trust me."

Haru's feet stumbled. Baron caught her before she hit the ground, catching her in one fluid motion, although there was something curious in his gaze. "Miss Haru? Is something amiss?"

Haru pushed herself back to her feet, looking rather flustered. "No," she quickly answered – too quickly for it to be true. "No. I just... I just tripped. Can't see a thing in this storm."

And yet, that last line spun round her mind like crazy.

_Just trust me._

It was the very same line Shizuku's Baron used.

ooOoo

Their destination was located in a valley of sorts; a frozen river winding its way through the middle, forever stuck in that moment by the fierce cold sinking into the ground. A few sparse trees – more than any that Haru had seen during their crossing of the Snowplains – littered the bottom, last survivors from a time that was rapidly running out. Where the trees clustered closest, a small building of sorts was built between them.

Haru's first thought was that it was a gingerbread house, but as she approached it became clear it was a gingerbread house gone wrong. The icing ringing the shuttered windows were cracked and frozen, trimmed down to the barest of linings, while the walls themselves – gingerbread, almost certainly – was doing the sweet equivalent of rotting away. The edges were tainted with neglect and the gumdrop doorknob had lost whatever shine it had once had, now a glum, gloomy shade of blue.

"Are... you sure this is the right place?"

All in all, it looked rather abandoned to Haru.

Baron gave a dry chuckle. "Quite sure." He turned the gumdrop doorknob, and the door itself swung open with only the barest of resistance. Haru could see that the latches had long ago worn away and only the bare minimal remained to keep the door in place.

The inside didn't look much more inviting that the out, if Haru was to be perfectly honest. Neither was it any warmer, which was the more important of the two. "So... this is your idea of 'safe'?" she flippantly asked. "Seems a little bare, to me."

"That's what you're meant to think." Unperturbed by Haru's attitude, the wooden figurine strode to the middle of the one-roomed hut and pulled away a threadbare, strawberry laces rug, bringing away the gingerbread flooring to reveal...

"A tunnel? Hidden beneath a carpet? Well _that's_ original."

"It works." Baron was already descending the ladder, jumping down for the last foot or so and landing on a dry, dusty cavern floor. He motioned for Haru to follow.

"What is this place?" she asked once she had joined her guide.

Baron ascended a few steps of the ladder to close the trapdoor after them. "Underground passages. These have been around for many years, but only once the Cat King took over did toys begin to make common usage out of them." Dotted at irregular intervals, small lights lit up the tunnel. They looked like badly-strung Christmas lights, but smaller and weaker with the occasional broken one. The tunnel itself wasn't in such bad repair, but it was dim and Haru struggled to see where she put her feet.

They had walked for a good ten minutes; enough time for Haru to notice that their current destination was significantly warmer than outside had been – or the abandoned hut. She supposed that under the ground, the heat was more efficiently trapped. All the same, the tension didn't leave her body at the friendlier temperatures; the new, unfamiliar territory renewing the unease from earlier. Time passed and Haru became numbed by the repeating surroundings, but the sound of life stirred her.

It echoed well down the earthy passages, distorting as it bounced off the walls, but clearly marking the proximity of their destination. Nerves began to play on Haru's mind; she instinctively slowed down and steered herself so she walked behind her guide. She had no idea what she was getting herself into.

The answer for what she had got to seemed to be chaos.

Baron stopped as they approached an opening in the tunnel. It funnelled out into a cavern, dimly lit by the same sources and filled with the forms of toys. Well, perhaps 'filled' was too generous a term; the cavern, as large as a regular dining room, had a grand total of four individuals, all making the racket that was echoing down the passageways.

The main source of disruption appeared to be a large, black crow. The creature in question wasn't able to get far though, with its beak strapped shut and feet chained to the ground. A bind had been wrapped around the bird's body to prevent it from spreading its wings and yet, despite all the precautions, it was still giving its captors trouble.

The three other occupants of the room were so focused on the bird, shouting questions that echoed around the cavern and ended up as fragmented pieces of words, that they failed to notice their visitors at first. But eventually their eyes registered the newcomers and suddenly someone had wrapped Baron into a hug.

"Baron!"

The girl was quite small, only reaching to Haru's shoulder – at her new height, anyway – and was evidently a doll of sorts. Her light brown hair – which looked like it had been hacked short at some point – only reached to her chin, although the type of doll she appeared to be suggested her hair had been much longer once. Thin, rather tattered wings stretched from her back, fluttering slightly with happiness, although they did so slowly, as if tired.

Another toy galloped up – this one a wooden horse of sorts. It was unpainted, although the wood appeared chipped in places and the tail was almost threadbare. This creature grinned and nudged the figurine. "We knew you'd be back!"

"Of course we did," the fairy said. She hit his arm in a rather reprimanding manner. "Although you could have picked up the pace. We've been waiting four days for you to turn up – ever since the overgrown turkey turned up here." She carelessly gestured at the crow with one plastic thumb. "Where have you been?"

"All in good time. Firstly though, I ask that you release my friend." Baron smiled to the doll. "I appreciate your vigilance, Hiromi, but he has been a great help and his capture isn't the way I like to thank somebody."

"Oh... Right." The doll stepped back and, with the wooden horse in tow, went to release the crow. It was at this point that the final toy, which hadn't spoken up to this point, came forward.

"Who is the girl, Baron?"

The toy was a small, plastic figurine of sorts, probably from a collection of medieval figures. He would only come up to Haru's waist, she guessed, but a bow was slung around his shoulder and a quiver of arrows rested on his back. He looked like some slightly grim version of Robin Hood. His expression was also grim, watching Haru with the sort of distaste and distrust that made her want to crawl under a rock and hide.

"This is Haru. I promised that I'd get her somewhere safe. She's on our side, Robin."

The archer – now known to be Robin; evidently whoever had named him hadn't been that inventive – grunted, and backed away. The fairy stopped in her task and now, for the first time, saw the porcelain doll. "Hey, Baron, where did you pick up that little china thing?" She unlatched the last bind and wandered back over to the newcomers. She tilted her head in curiosity and, despite her use of the word 'little', Haru was unmistakably a head taller. "I'm impressed she managed to make it this far; she looks ready to break at a moment's notice." Regardless of her words, the fairy proffered one hand to the porcelain figurine. "Hiromi. The wooden horse is Paris and the dark cloud over there–" she gestured to the archer "–is Robin. He has his paranoia moments, so don't mind him."

"Really? We have an unidentified toy that Baron brings along, and none of you are even wondering which way her loyalties lie? No offence, Baron," the medieval archer held up his hands in defence, "but we all know that you prefer to save the damsel and ask questions later. How do we know she's one of us? She could be a spy of the Cat King."

Haru bristled at this; Baron placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Miss Haru has no alliance with the Cat King. Just trust me."

Haru still reacted slightly against those all-too-familiar words, but Baron made no show of sensing her tension. She didn't doubt he had noticed and logged it away, but at that point he let it go.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because it's thanks to that overweight fur ball that I'm like this," Haru said. Her voice appeared to surprise the other toys; perhaps her tone was harsher than was to be expected from a china ballerina. Either way, either her words or her tone induced some belief in the onlookers. Robin looked to Baron.

"He's done it again?"

The wooden figurine only nodded.

"Wait, it's happened before?" Haru interceded. "To who? When? What happened to them?"

"It's only happened once or twice. This is how we know there is no way to... undo what has been done. I'm sorry, Miss Haru." Baron received a strange look from Robin for his answer, but the feline didn't add anything. He only looked to his recently-freed friend and asked, "Now, would you care to explain why I found my companion in such a state?"

The three other toys looked rather sheepish.

"What else were we meant to think?" Hiromi muttered. "The bird just appeared, with your travel-gem, and no you. He was saying that you had gone into a house and he had been told to wait a day or so, but then, one evening, you just appeared to have... disappeared. We thought he was a spy – what else was there to think?"

"Alright. Your logic was valid. However, he was telling the truth. I gave him the travel-gem before I went on... a little detour–" The crow snorted at his words. Baron ignored him. "–and the Cat King found me. I managed to find a portal back, but it dropped me in the Feral Forest and we've been walking back ever since. Toto helped me with my task in the Human World."

"What's the verdict?" Robin asked.

"We..." Baron closed his eyes and his words came out as a whisper. "We were too late."

"When are you going to tell the boy?"

"When he comes."

"Baron! What happened to your ear?" Hiromi finally noticed the change in her wooden companion, almost yelping out the question from shock. "It's... It's..."

Baron felt for the missing ear with the beginnings of self-consciousness. "It's nothing. It doesn't even hurt anymore."

"What happened?" Robin asked.

"The Cat King." The wooden figurine turned, new grief and shock returning at the remembering of his loss. And, even though an anger of sorts rose to the Baron's face, Haru remembered the vulnerability and weakness he'd displayed the first time they'd met. He wasn't as indomitable as he made out to be. "What else?"


	9. Sunday 9th December

"_Christmas is a time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered." ~ Phyllis Diller_

x

Sunday 9th December 2012: Past Forgotten

Sleeping as a toy was something unlike Haru had ever experienced before. She hadn't been allowed to rest since her transformation, but only her mind had been tired. Now, given the chance, her mind slipped into a vivid daydream/sleep of sorts. She only realised this when she 'woke,' but her body had automatically moved back into the position she had seen the Snowdrop Ballerina in all her life.

And when she slept, her mind drifted into a dream of sorts, but so much more alive and colourful and... _real_ than any dream she'd ever had before. So much more real than anything she'd felt since becoming a toy. She stood in the forest – the Feral Forest, she believed; the ground was carpeted in the same thick layer of snow and the trees were as bare as they'd been before – and, to one side lay the immobile body of the toy wolf. She felt the snow's cold beneath her feet with so much more intensity than anything she'd felt since her change, and had to quick-foot it across the snow to fight off the severe cold.

She stopped several metres later, coming across a lump in the snow that she didn't recognise. She leant down, intending to clear away the clouding snow, but discovered her hands made no impact on it. The cold still seeped into her palm and fingers, but the snow remained as smooth as ever. The lump moved though, but not through her actions. It quivered, and then shivered so violently that the worst of the snow slid off. The snowstorm was now fiercer than it had ever been while she'd been there, blowing in great gusts of snow-filled wind.

The lump shook again and the decapitated head of the wolf appeared. It snapped and snarled at its freedom from the snow, but quickly simmered down into a low, constant growl. Haru had had quite enough of this strange, unnerving dream, and jumped back. She began backpedalling, leaving no footprints in the snow, even as the wolf continued its warning growl. It didn't see her, but emitted its growl as a threat to anything foolish enough to approach it.

Haru stepped further back and suddenly the winter surroundings melted away. Now she was standing on a ledge, looking out to a room grossly enlarged to daunting proportions. The angle was so unfamiliar to her that it took several seconds for her mind to realise this room was the guest room of the Amasawas, but grown to a giant scale.

And then it dawned on her that it wasn't the room that had changed, but her.

Her, in her new, toy-sized form.

The guest room was dark – evidently it was night or just coming up to morning – and there was someone in the bed. For a moment a stupid, foolish part of her thought it was herself, sleeping soundly in her bed and that this had to be all a long, complicated dream, but then she realised the head of hair was a red shade, instead of her own dark brown. Her mother. She was watching her own mother sleep.

The woman turned in her slumber, suffering a restless dream of sorts, and murmured something incomprehensible into her pillow. Had it really been over a week since she'd last seen her mother? The last time they'd met face-to-face was at the end of November, when Haru had left early for the Amasawas and Naoko had left for her quilting convention.

And that last meeting had ended badly.

Naoko stirred again, turning to face the window where the first glimmers of sunlight tentatively trickled through. Her eyes flickered open and, for just a moment in that thin line between sleep and awake, her grey eyes focused upon the ballerina form of her daughter. And then she was blinking and she lost sight of the dreaming girl and tears brimmed in those depths.

Haru moved forward – to do what, she didn't know; all she knew was that she had to stop those tears – but the world shifted beneath her feet. The tender scene before her melted away and now she stood in the dim, lonely underground habitation.

She had woken. She knew that; already the world was losing its sharpness and her senses were dulling back to their usual toy-selves. She wiped furiously at her eyes, as if expecting tears to be swelling. But no tears came. How could they? Her eyes were only painted pieces of porcelain. She focused instead on the room around her; one of many basic rooms – or enlarged, dead ends of tunnels, to be blunt – in the underground labyrinth. One of the Christmas lights hung in one corner, emitting a dull, bluish gleam over the room, a simple cloth suspended over the opening to serve as a kind of door at the other side.

It was through this that she exited from her room and into the underground corridor. More doors of the same style marked out more rooms, and she stopped near one of the rooms that neighboured the main cavern. She paused by this door, unsure what the protocol was; with the door being cloth, she could hardly knock, nor could she just walk in. She couldn't bring herself to walk away either. She was lonely and tired of all the half-answers and missed home. And she just wanted someone to talk to.

She could hear a kind of scratching from within the room. For a while she merely listened to the sound, curious and yet too tired to be truly curious, and continued to try to talk herself out of this. Eventually the choice was taken out of her hands. The scratching noise ceased and was replaced by footsteps – wooden footsteps walking across an earthen floor – and the curtain door was moved aside to reveal the Baron.

"Miss Haru?"

"I... I... want to know how the dreams work," she murmured. Suddenly she found great interest in the uneven earthen floor, scuffing her foot across the bumpy surface. She looked up, and found the figurine to be regarding her with mixed understanding and pity.

"So you've already dreamt." He sighed. "Come in."

Nervously, Haru followed Baron into the room. His room was significantly more furnished than Haru's, with a desk in one corner and a quill lying abandoned across a sheet – evidently the source of the scratching noise – and a table and chairs supplied. Baron took one of these chairs and motioned for Haru to also sit.

"Where did you go?"

"Sorry?"

He tried again. "In your dream. Where did you go?"

"To... To the Feral Forest. At first."

The wooden feline tilted his head curiously. "The Feral Forest? What did you see?"

His directional questions were catching Haru unawares, like he already knew what to expect. Except her first answer had surprised him. "The... The wolf's head." She felt sick just thinking about it. "I saw it move again. Even though it was... you know..." She didn't shiver – couldn't really shiver – but she knew that, had she been human, she would have. "How could it still be alive?"

"Toys don't live in the same way as humans, Miss Haru. We are conscious, living beings, but we don't live or die the same way... normal creatures do. Once we lose a limb – or an ear – we lose all connection to that piece. The pain lasts a while, but it goes and it feels – or will feel, anyway," he added, and Haru got the distinct impression he still keenly felt the lack of his ear or was still grieving over it, "like we never lost a limb to begin with. Our centre is the head. Whatever remains connected to the head will be part of us; anything disconnected is lost. Only the wolf's head remains conscious."

"And if the head is broken up?"

"If the head is completely shattered, the conscious can be spread across the broken pieces," Baron answered. And then he added, "Kingdoms forbid you ever see that."

"So... toys can't die?"

Baron smiled slightly. "We can. We can choose to let go, to die. I don't know what happens though. No one does. Maybe toys are blessed with a soul because of people's love for them, but there is no way of knowing. Toys can also be... destroyed. Plastic melted down, wood burnt to ashes, china grinded down to dust. There is the point of no return. I'm sorry to be so blunt but... this is something you should be aware of." He took another look at the porcelain doll and his expression softened. "The wolf truly scared you, didn't it, Miss Haru?"

"How can you tell?"

"When toys dream, we are taken to places or people with meaning to us. It's a small blessing for those of us far away from home or friends." And, from his answer, Haru knew that his life had once far exceeded beyond the underground living the war had forced him into. "Sometimes it picks up something that happened recently that left an impact on us. For you to visit it, it must have scared you."

"I guess it did. So... what I see... it's actually happening?"

"Yes." Baron read something else in her tone, for his glance shifted, becoming more perceptive than Haru was prepared for. "What else did you see?"

"I... I saw my mother." Haru bit her lip. "It hadn't dawned on me until then just how much I miss her."

"That's natural."

"I think... I think she saw me. Just for a moment." Haru looked to Baron for confirmation. "Just before she properly woke up, I think she saw me."

The wooden figurine smiled gently. "Maybe. Between slumber and waking, we can often see something beyond our usual sight can grant us."

Haru thought this over in silence, trying to piece together the dream. "And... everything felt so much more... vivid in the dream. I felt..." She felt stupid saying this, but there was no other way to put it. "I felt almost... almost _human_." She stopped examining the table beneath her china fingers, and met Baron's calm gaze. "Are all toy dreams like that?"

"For you, they will be."

"Me? Why only me?"

"You are human, Miss Haru. Or, at least, you once were. There's something about a toy with a true human soul that enables them to dream with the same senses as when they were human," Baron answered. "Your dreams are indeed a blessing; they allow you a moment's taste of life – true life, not this padded being where the senses are muffled and life is only ever half-experienced."

Haru looked to her companion – properly looked, not just a quiet glance. "Who are you?"

A bittersweet smile spread across the Baron's face. "Just a simple toy trying to do his best for his world."

"Liar. How can you talk so accurately about being human unless... unless..." She frowned. Her voice dropped to a mutter. "Unless you were once human?" she whispered. The dots began jumping together, piecing together an image that Haru kicked herself for not noticing earlier. "You _were_ human, weren't you? That's how you know there's no way to undo this, isn't it? That's how you know what it feels like to be human and how I dream and... and why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"Would you, if you were in my shoes? Would you have wanted to unearth all the memories you've been keeping back for the past twenty years, trying to forget everything you've lost and pretend that you're happy with this half-existence?"

"I... Well... Maybe not," Haru admitted. She looked away. "Who were you?"

"I was Humbert Gikkingen."

"That's..." There were too many coincidences and overlaps here for Haru to make sense of. "That's the name of Shizuku's Baron. Or near enough. Baron Humbert von Gikkingen..."

"Yes, she used my name after... after I was left like this."

"You knew Shizuku?"

Baron sighed. "I guess I should start from the beginning."

"I guess you should."

"I had known Shizuku from secondary school – I had known Seiji and your parents too; it had always been just the five of us – and even when we went to separate universities, we stayed in touch. We came back together for holidays – Christmas and summer – and, back then, Shizuku and I were together."

"You're him!" Haru hadn't been meaning to interrupt or voice her realisation, but it was too late now. "You're the guy that Shizuku had been talking about."

"She still remembers me?" A tired, half-smile flickered across the toy's face. "That's nice to know. How much has she told you?"

"Only that you're in a coma from something that happened twenty years ago..."

"I wouldn't expect her to know much more than that. Twenty years ago, I brought back a wooden figurine that I had spotted in a toyshop. It was a feline doll that I had picked up because it fitted so well with a wooden figurine that Seiji's grandfather had made several years back." Baron smiled thinly. "Nothing would have happened to me if I hadn't forgotten my wallet. I returned early from a party on Christmas Eve to pick it up, only to discover that the living room was in chaos. The Cat King had just begun his siege on the Toy Kingdom and was after the feline doll that I'd bought. I intervened and... well, you can see the results." He spread open his palms to indicate himself. "Shizuku had already been writing about the Baron by that point, and had already been using a few of my habits to flesh out his character, so when I disappeared she gave his full name as a more elaborate version of mine, I guess as a memory to me. I took up the name – now I'm known as Baron Humbert von Gikkingen – so I never forget what I've lost and what I am now.

"Now my human body remains comatose in the Human World, maintained by the magic that left me like this and forever asleep, while I am forever a wooden figurine with only memories and dreams to stop me forgetting that I was once human. I have spent the past twenty years trying to end this long, bitter war, but nothing I can do makes a difference."

"That's not true, I'm sure," Haru protested.

"Isn't it?" Baron met her gaze and Haru suddenly realised twenty years was a long time to live with the 'what-ifs' of a life irrefutably changed. "I've spent the last five years looking for someone lost, only to learn from Toto that she died half a decade ago. That I was too late before I even started. And what about you? If I had returned straight to the Toy Kingdom, instead of lingering to see Shizuku and Seiji one more time, you wouldn't be here."

Haru couldn't argue with that.


	10. Monday 10th December

"_I am not along at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind is coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses." ~ Taylor Caldwell._

x

Monday 10th December 2012: Never Alone

Haru's eyes were deceiving her.

Or perhaps her mind was.

Either way, this wasn't the best of conclusions the china ballerina could have reached the next morning. It wasn't a good way to start any morning, really. But, delusion or not, her mind was adamant that the crack on her hand had shrunk.

She wouldn't have been so sure if she hadn't spent so much time snatching glances at it. Over the past two days, she had been stealing glimpses of the crack, just to remind her that she really had gone and done it; she really had irreparably damaged herself and would be stuck with it for the remainder of her days.

But there was no denying it.

The crack had shrunk.

Baron had been firm on the original matter; with the monarch gone, she wouldn't heal. There wasn't any magic left to heal the scars she'd gain while in toy form. So what she was seeing was impossible. And yet it was happening.

The group was too busy preparing for somebody or other that was arriving that day to pay much attention to the bewildered brunette. She guessed she should be grateful for this distraction; she didn't want to explain what had happened nor what she believed to have occurred. All she wanted to do right now was disappear into the background, fade away while the rest of the occupants busied themselves with their own tasks.

There was, however, one toy that didn't have much to do. Toto, the stone crow that had been mistaken as hostile on his first appearance, hopped over to where the ballerina sat. Perhaps because they were both newcomers to this group, Haru didn't mind his intrusion.

"Is everything going okay?"

"Well, I'm still in one piece and I'm still alive, so I guess so." Haru's left hand rubbed at the crack on her right, absent-mindedly tracing the fracture with her fingers.

"That doesn't quite answer my question."

"Did it not? Oh, I was rather hoping it would."

"Miss Haru–"

"Just Haru, if you would. I know Baron calls me that, but I've always been just plain Haru."

The stone crow tilted his head in singular acknowledgement. "If you say so. Haru, if you don't mind me being so forward, there seems to be something on your mind. Is everything under control?"

Haru bit back a sharp laugh. "I've been stuck as a toy, stranded in another world, attacked by mutated _Transformer_ toys and trekked halfway across this world. There's not a snowball's chance in summer that everything is even _barely_ under control." She turned to the other toy. "Does that answer your question?"

"I'm sorry. Baron had mentioned that you had suffered the same fate as him; I should have realised you would still be adjusting."

Haru huffed a sigh, bringing her knees against her chest and releasing her breath across her porcelain skin. Even with the other toys around her, she still felt very small. "I just want to go home," she muttered eventually. "But Baron says there's no way to return to the way I was before."

Toto hesitated to her side. The silence stretched out to an awkward length, but finally broke it with, "It's not so bad being a toy, you know. When this kingdom is returned to its former glory–"

"You believe you can undo the damage?"

Some of Haru's incredibility must have leaked out in her tone, because the bird's gaze snapped to the young ballerina. "I've seen this kingdom struggle through many ages, through civil wars and lost monarchs and misuse of the monarch's magic, but the world always rights itself in the end. Toys are cracked and broken, and everyone doesn't always make it through, but we must always, _always_ hope." He turned away. "If we don't hope, we are lost."

"But... this world is so... broken," Haru whispered. The image of the Feral Forest rose to her mind, with the mindless toy attacking, and then the empty barrenness that now stood as the Snow Plains. "And Baron says–"

"Baron is young." The barest of smiles flickered at Toto's lips. "Twenty years as a human, twenty years as a toy... Some toys have lived through much longer, have seen monarchs come and go and we learn that life always continues. Just sometimes the times are more difficult than others."

"I thought the kingdom was nearly beyond hope?"

The crow acknowledged this with a slight nod. "Some parts of this world will take longer to heal than others. Some will take many, many years. But I believe there is hope."

"I don't think Baron does," Haru muttered.

"From what I've seen, I think the Baron is tired of hope." Toto tilted his head to the other side, a strangely sorrowful note coming into his voice. "I have only known him for the past week, but I have heard his story and heard enough from him to draw a few conclusions. He has lived in hope for the past twenty years – for a way to return to human, for a way to end this war, for a way to heal the land – and still he feels like his efforts have been in vain. He is weary of this war."

"I think everyone is," the ballerina agreed. She watched the other resident toys occupy the hall, restlessly waiting for something or someone to arrive. They queried between themselves, sometimes exiting to check the outer tunnels, other times just engaging in impatient conversation. She caught the momentary eye contact with Baron, and they both held it for the barest of seconds before both broke it. Haru turned away, moving her attention back to the stone crow. "How old are you?" She took in his appearance: the details were sharp, but showing some definite signs of wear and tear, but he spoke as if he were older than his condition would suggest. "And since when were avian gargoyles toys?"

Toto released a slight chuckle. "I wondered how long it would be before that question appeared. I am at least four hundred years old. I lost track several decades back. The person who created me put so much of their soul into me that it served in the same way that a child's imagination brings their toys alive."

"Oh. That can happen?"

"Indeed."

Haru thought it through before adding, "You don't look that old."

"I was fifty when I arrived at this kingdom, with the appearance you'd expect from any statue exposed to the elements for that long, and in that time the kingdom was still flourishing. The magic healed me and kept me new. The marks you see now have only been gained in the past five years."

"Oh." Now it had been explained, it seemed obvious.

"And those five years I have spent in the Human World." Toto released a deep sigh. "This world has changed in those years. It was beginning to suffer from the war before I left, but it is much worse than I expected."

"In that case, why hope?"

"Because I must." Toto gave a strange smile and hopped back onto his feet, shuffling his wings with the sound of stone-against-stone, and moved in the direction of the other toys. "But now our conversation must be cut short; it sounds as if our guests are arriving."

Haru pulled herself onto her feet, unsure how Toto could be so certain, and finally heard the sound of hooves on dirt. Paris skidded into the hall.

"They're here!"

"Finally," Baron could be heard to mutter. Nonetheless, he straightened his posture and took a stance that wasn't too unalike to being to attention. Haru was caught unawares; Shizuku's Baron had often fought – and usually won – but she had never imagined him to be anything even remotely close to a soldier. She always imagined the Baron fighting on his own terms; not answering to anyone or anything. And certainly not looking like a soldier waiting for his captain.

Subconsciously, she edged closer to the wall.

The first to arrive after Paris was a white feline. He was dressed in faded military attire that was coloured to fit with a dark forest environment, with scuffed murky boots that were torn around the edges. Behind him came possibly the largest, roundest cat Haru had ever seen. White, with only one rebel brown patch on his left ear, he was merely suited with a dark cloak that just managed to fit around his girth. Quickly after, half a dozen other military felines followed behind.

Baron executed a sharp bow. "Your Highness."

Haru's eyes doubled in size.

The smaller white feline nodded once in Baron's direction. "Baron." His head tilted to one side and Haru was sure he had spotted the absent ear. But he made no comment on that. "How long has it been since we last met? One month? Nearly two? I heard you had news."

"I do." He paused, and the silence was deafening. "I'm sorry, Your Highness."

The royal shook his head, but it seemed to take an exhausting amount of mental energy to force the movement. "I should have known... after fifteen years... that something had happened to her. I had to hope though..." He snapped his head back up, and Haru could almost feel him pulling himself together. She couldn't make out his facial expressions from her vantage point, but she saw him focus on the stone crow and something in his mannerism shifted to surprise. "Toto..."

Toto hopped forward. "I'm sorry to have been the bearer of bad news, Your Highness. I... I didn't know her for long, but she loved you very much. That much was clear."

"I know." The young royal turned away. "Trust me, I know. What...?" His voice broke, just for a second, before he gathered it again. "What happened?"

"I don't think–"

"Tell me."

"Please, Your Highness, maybe later–"

"Tell me!"

His voice rang round the stone hall, and for a brief moment the echoes sounded infinite. Toto jittered back, his black wings brushing against each other and making the grating sound of stone-against-stone.

"A truck. A human truck hit her. I'm sorry."

The cat turned away and the silence once again stretched out. It seemed almost emptier than before, especially now the last echoes had faded away. "Thank you, Toto. For telling me." He turned his head enough to make eye contact with the feline figurine. "We've travelled a long time today, Baron. Is there a chance my cats and I could be given a place to rest and make plans tomorrow?"

"Of course."

Haru watched them leave. She was already beginning to wish she hadn't witnessed that meeting.

ooOoo

That evening, sleep wouldn't come.

It wasn't like the human state of insomnia; Haru knew that she could switch her mind off and stumble straight into the world of slumber with the simple act of clearing her mind and a brief spurt of concentration, but this time it was difficult. Her mind was too full and too scared of where her dreams might take her. The young royal's loss echoed round her head, reminding of what had been lost even in the last week. Her humanity. Her family. Her world.

She didn't want her dreams to take her back. Not tonight. The reminder of her loss would be too great.

Releasing a long, low breath, Haru opened her eyes. She regarded the plain, earthy walls surrounding her and quickly grew tired of the bland environment. True, it was dry and warm and safe, but she had spent over two days in the confines of this bleak landscape, where only the glimmering lanterns were left to lighten the dark recesses and shadows sprawled in long elongated forms.

She rolled her shoulders, stretching her arms in a reluctant fashion as she abandoned the idea of sleep. Instead, she moved aside the curtain and stepped out into the corridor beyond. A short, simple walk guided her to the main cavern, and there she saw she wasn't the only toy up. The Prince's accompanying feline soldiers, and the huge cat, occupied the room, standing in the middle where the stone table rested. The table was a basic structure, looking more like an oversized brick than a hand-carved furnishing, but served its purpose as the felines discussed around it.

The Prince's companions weren't the only ones present; Baron and Robin both were heavily involved in the discussion, Baron leading the talk as he gestured to a map spread across the aforementioned table. Haru couldn't make out the words, but she guessed that plans of sorts were being made. Perhaps news had come in. Whatever was going on, Haru wasn't sure she was too interested in joining.

She just wanted to go home.

So, stealing one last glance at the debate – and spotting the stone crow sleeping against one wall too – she turned around and headed back the way she'd came. She stopped before she arrived back at her room, pausing to think over the image she'd stumbled upon.

This Baron wasn't Shizuku's Baron.

How often had she thought that in the past days? And yet, every time the thought crossed her mind – in a new way, in a new image, in a new comparison – it caught her unawares. She could never stop making the constant comparisons, couldn't never quite erase her personal expectations for the wooden feline, even when she knew she was being irrational. Shizuku's Baron was suave and fearless and infallible. This Baron was war-weary and as fallible as the next person. Shizuku's Baron could plan a rescue.

This Baron could plan a battle.

Haru shook her head, even as she realised she had rested her forehead against the uneven tunnel wall. This confusion wouldn't help her. She had guessed, from Baron's revelation yesterday, that Shizuku had based her Baron on the then-Humbert, which would explain the few similarities that ran through but, appearances aside, he was nearly unrecognisable. She wondered how much the past twenty years had changed him. How much they had changed everyone.

Haru tried to push these circling thoughts away, to regain some form of mental control, when a thin sound reached her ears. It was so faint that, for several seconds, she didn't recognise it. But her heart recognised it before her mind, and even as she had registered it as a child's crying she was already starting to walk.

The sobs were quiet, with the occasional hiccup that signified the person was trying to hold back their sorrow – with little success – but startlingly steeped in deep grief. Haru hesitated. Her feet stumbled over the uneven ground, scuffing dirt onto her china ballerina pumps and leaving marks in the floor, but she continued to guide herself towards the source of the sobs. She stopped by one of the small habitation rooms, and with only a fraying curtain to separate them, the crying was unmistakable now.

She hesitated again, this time with one hand hovering over the curtain. She briefly closed her eyes, as if making a quick prayer that she was doing the right thing, and gently pulled the curtain aside.

Inside, the white prince sat. The room was basic, but what little furnishing had adorned it was upturned and scattered, as if brusquely thrown aside in a fit of rage. Round the white feline, however, there was only the dusty ground he sat on.

The sobbing stopped, although Haru could still hear his uneasy breathing choking in his throat. He regained a little reprieve, enough to speak anyway.

"Who's there?" His head turned and now Haru saw one milky-blue eye turn to her. He blinked, but didn't focus. "Who are you?"

"I... I heard you and..." And _what_, exactly? Haru pondered. She couldn't stand to hear his cries? She had felt the need to do _something_? "I just wanted to help," she finished lamely.

"Help?" The Prince's voice came out hoarse and he turned away. The eerily unfocused eye released her, to her relief, she couldn't help but admit. "I'm past help."

Haru could have walked out. She could have turned and left the feline to his sorrow. It would almost have been too easy. But the same caring streak that had led her there in the first place pushed through and she walked towards him instead. Kneeling down beside the grief-stricken cat, she hesitantly placed one porcelain hand on his shoulder. "Of course you're not," she insisted. "You just can't see that right now."

His shoulder twitched, as if contemplating shrugging her off but discovered he didn't have the energy to do so, and his head turned to give her a view of the same blue eye again. The pupil didn't display any emotion, but the rest of the face Haru could see twitched. He shifted, and turned his head yet more so both eyes rested on Haru.

The ballerina almost stumbled back. Probably would, if she hadn't been kneeling.

The Prince's other eye was a bright, uncannily sharp red. This eye blinked and focused new attention on his guest. "Who are you?"

Haru was too busy shifting her gaze between the mismatching pair of eyes – eyes that didn't quite fit together, as if one had been mutilated and now neither worked together quite like they should – and almost missed his question. As things went though, her mouth flapped uselessly for a couple of seconds before words began to form.

"Haru. I'm Haru." Then, feeling the need to elaborate, she added, "I arrived with Baron. I'm... well, I used to be a human, but I kind of got on the wrong side of the Cat King." She looked away and made a half-hearted shrug. "So here I am."

She heard the Prince execute a sharp, irritated sound, and on looking back up saw a few sparks of anger simmering in the red eye. The blue eye continued to stare emotionlessly out. "I'm sorry for whatever he has done to you. Trust me, if we had found any way to undo it..." The anger faded as quickly as it'd come. Anger was too exhaustive an emotion to bear with the sorrow weighing him down.

"I know. If there was a way, Baron wouldn't still be here," Haru finished for him.

With a new silence forming, Haru took the time to take another look at the feline royal.

He was significantly younger than she had initially pegged him. With his military outfit, his soldiers and Baron's deference, she had aged him at about twenty, at the very least. But now, at this proximity and with his defences down, she guessed him to be in his mid teens. She wondered what had happened for a teenager to have so much shoved onto his shoulders.

War, she guessed.

She still didn't quite understand what was wrong with his eyes. She had seen eyes with mismatching irises before – she understood it was relatively common in cats – but there was something different here. Something beyond your average odd-eye cats, although she wasn't aware red was an eye colour choice.

"I'm... I'm sorry for your loss, by the way," she muttered. The condolence sounded flat and meaningless on her tongue – he must have heard the same words repeated too many times that day, but she knew no other way to address her sympathy. Neither was she aware of who exactly had passed away.

The Prince nodded mutely and now new tears streaked his white fur. Haru immediately felt bad for reminding him.

"I can't believe she's gone," he whispered between the tears. "It's been five years since she went into the Human World, but I kept on believing that something else must have happened. Maybe she couldn't find her way back, maybe she lost the travelling stone, anything to explain her absence. But... it sounded like Toto was very sure on the matter..."

The tears were coming faster now, much too fast. He choked on the renewed sobs and finally broke down entirely. Haru did the only thing that felt right.

She placed an arm around him and let him sob on her shoulder.

She rested her chin atop the feline's white head, feeling the sobs shake through him and travel through her, and tried not to think about what she had lost. She didn't murmur assurances that everything would be alright, because she knew she couldn't promise that. Instead she closed her eyes and let the cat's grief speak for both of them.

Time passed in lumbering, clumsy strides, but eventually the young feline had cried all that could be cried. The tears stopped, receding into the quiet, wheezing hiccups that surfaced when all the tears had been spent. Haru felt the time was right to leave the Prince to his own grieving, that now he needed to be alone, and moved to stand.

The Prince's paw curled around her wrist. She thought that he was going to stop her, but he only slowed her enough for her to hear him murmur, "Thank you. Haru."

He released her and Haru was free to leave. She hesitated. "You're not alone," she said. "You never will be." She took her steps back slowly, doing her best to muffle her footsteps, but her porcelain feet were not fashioned for hushed movement as she stepped steadily backwards towards the curtain. Only as she turned did she register the presence of someone else in the makeshift doorway.

Baron caught her before she walked into him, stopping her with one hand and raising his other to his lips. His eyes flickered once to the grieving Prince before flickering back to Haru. He nodded and led her out of the room.

Only once two corridors had been placed between them and the Prince, and they came to Haru's room, did Baron stop. Again his eyes flickered away from Haru, and the ballerina could guess he was remembering the broken form of the white feline. She almost voiced her queries, but stifled them before she asked. This wasn't something she could just ask. This was something that would only be told of someone's own deciding.

When Baron's gaze returned to Haru, she could see some decision of sorts had been reached. But his first statement wasn't an explanation or even a question.

"Thank you, Miss Haru. He needed that."

"I don't need any thanks," Haru mumbled. "It's what anyone would've done."

"No," Baron replied, "it isn't."

Another silence started, but this was a newer, more awkward silence than the ones she had shared with the young Prince. Haru stole a glance at the curtain to her room, wondering whether she could just excuse herself or whether Baron had more to say.

She eventually cleared her throat. "I guess I should try to catch some sleep. It's been a long day and..." She shrugged as she let the sentence lamely hang in the air, unfinished and uncertain. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes. And, Miss Haru?"

Haru stopped just before the curtain. She tilted her head, seeing the form of Baron out of the corner of her eye, enveloped in half-hearted shadows cast where the flickering lanterns didn't shed light. "I asked you to call me Haru," she muttered.

The wooden figurine seemed to be fighting some internal battle and, for just a few seconds, Haru thought he was going to explain what the Prince was going through – who he'd lost and why his eyes didn't quite look right and how a teenager could possibly be harbouring so much responsibility without breaking – but at Haru's words, he lost the battle. He shook his head. "I'm sorry for everything."

And then he walked away.


	11. Tuesday 11th December

"_Time always seems long to the child who is waiting – for Christmas, for next summer, for becoming a grownup: long also when he surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day." ~ Dag Hammarskjold._

x

Tuesday 11th December 2012: Waiting

Yet more planning was taking place the next day. When Haru wandered into the hall she came across a similar sight from the night before, with only the addition of the Prince this time. Haru watched him from across the main cavern, but it appeared he had gathered himself together and once again emitted the same orderly, in control air as he had first put on for his arrival. He engaged in the discussion, pointing out landmarks on the map and occasionally rivalling someone else's idea.

All in all, it was hard to believe he was only a teenager.

"He looks better today," Toto commented. The stone bird hopped over to Haru, joining her as she watched the planning. "Baron told me what happened yesterday. It was a good thing you did back there."

"I don't know why you're both making such a big thing out of it," Haru muttered. "Anyone would've – should've – done what I did."

Toto released a quiet, slightly cackling laugh. Or, at least, it would have been cackling if it hadn't been weighed down with sorrow. "I haven't been in the Toy Kingdom for the past five years, but I get the impression that this world has become harder-hearted than how I remember it last."

"Not that hard-hearted," Haru mumbled, remembering how Baron had saved her life. Twice. Then again, she had saved his life twice, so they were evenly matched.

"Hard-hearted enough," Toto supplied. He twisted his head and looked to Haru once again. Haru decided she didn't like being the centre of attention. "Your presence here will help."

"How do you make that out?"

Toto angled his head the other way, then looked away. "Toys are forgetting what a better place – a _kinder_ place – this kingdom used to be. But you can remind them. After all," he added, "what are we if not kind?"

"I'm sorry you think this world has changed but... I'm nothing special."

A ghost of a smile twitched at Toto's beak. "Your humility does wonders for you." Still looking away, he added, "Humility is a hard lesson for many, and war has a way of making us face just how small we really are."

Haru wasn't entirely sure how she was meant to respond to that, so she merely nodded and returned her attention to the group amassed around the table. For the first time she focused on the rounded cat, who always seemed to hover protectively near the young royal. Once again, she wondered about the Prince's elusive past.

Toto spotted her line of sight. "Has anyone told you about the Prince?"

Haru shook her head. "I keep wanting to ask but... there's no right way to go about it."

"No, I don't expect there is." Toto pondered for a moment, and Haru almost believed he was going to repeat what Baron had done the night before, but he only nodded to himself. "I think you should know. It will help you to understand. But," the crow warned, "it isn't a pretty story."

"I didn't expect it to be," Haru admitted.

Toto released a sigh and ruffled his wings. Again they made the same grating sound as before. "The war had been going for five years when Corin was born."

"Oh." A straight thought fluttered across Haru's mind. "I didn't even know his name."

"Sorry. You'll find most will refer to him by his title. Muta calls him by his name, and I used to before I left for the Human World. Occasionally I let the name slip." Another sigh, another moment of silence. "But that's getting ahead of the story. A year after Corin's birth, his father – Prince Lune – stood up to his own father, Corin's grandfather, over the war. Prince Lune wanted King Shirou to stop the war and bring peace to the two kingdoms."

Toto made a strange, choking laugh, stuck halfway between morbid humour and grief. "As you can guess, his plea made little difference. Prince Lune was insistent though, even threatening to overthrow his father if it meant stopping the war. King Shirou – and I believe you've had the misfortune to meet the current Cat King – wouldn't take that . He and his son fought."

The stone crow paused, and now he looked uncomfortable – even more so than before. "Prince Lune was fatally wounded, but it appeared that wasn't enough for the Cat King. He now worried that his grandson could also be a threat to his rule, so he sent for Corin. However, a warning managed to reach the young princess and, with the aid of a loyal cook, Princess Yuki and her son were smuggled out of the castle.

"I found the three of them several years later, stranded in the Toy Kingdom and struggling to survive. To cut a long story short, I gained their trust, learnt the truth, and for a while life became a little easier for them. However, the Cat King still wanted his grandson dead, so they were in constant danger. And then we found a way to the Human World."

Toto looked like he wanted to stop there, but he started talking again.

"Five years ago, we found travel stones – stones embedded with a little magic that enables someone to hop between worlds – after raiding one abandoned house, and Princess Yuki had an idea. She planned to take herself and Corin into the Human World, where the Cat King never went since the war began, and there she and her son could live in peace until the war ended or Corin rose to take his heritage. Problem was, she knew the Human World was dangerous, especially for a kitten as young as Corin. In the Cat Kingdom," Toto added on a side note, "cats age at the same rate as humans. Cats born into the Cat Kingdom retain their aging rate even in the Human World, so that, at least, was one less problem to cope with. Princess Yuki's plan was relatively simple. She hoped to go to the Human World, find someone to take care of her, then bring Corin in once she knew they would be safe."

"She's the one Baron was looking for," Haru breathed. "She's the one who was hit by the truck."

Toto nodded solemnly. "I persuaded her that I should accompany her into the Human World – I had seen more of it than she ever had – and I saw it happen. It was stupid. I had warned her of roads – even explained that she should only ever cross at certain times – but still... I shouldn't have left her..." Toto visibly seemed to shrink before her. His voice dropped. "I flew across the road and waited for her to follow. She had the travel stone and it should have been fine, except then she dropped the stone." Now, even as Toto opened his beak, the words struggled to come. Finally he followed on with, "She would have been fine had she not lost her grip, but she dropped it and took too long picking it up. The truck hit her."

"I..."

"There's not much to say to that, I know. But now you know."

Haru thought of her own mother. Of their arguments, their ups and downs, the ignored phone calls and shouted conversations, but still knew she could never cope with losing her. And, even though she knew her mother was in an entirely different world and that she might never see her again, just the knowledge that her mother was still _there_, still waiting, was reassuring. Not reassuring enough, but enough to keep her from the border of despair. She instinctively wiped at her face, although no tears could ever come to her porcelain eyes, and tried to shift the conversation.

"So... what happened to you?"

"The travel stone shattered when Princess Yuki was lost to us, and with that went my only chance of returning to the Toy Kingdom. For the past five years I have been stuck in the Human World and only when I found Baron did I discover a way back ."

Haru looked back to the table, this time looking to Baron. Even at this distance, she could still make out the top hat perched atop his head, easily marking him out from the others. "He's been looking for Princess Yuki, hasn't he?"

"He discovered Corin half a year after we had left for the Human World, and by that point Corin and Muta were worrying." Toto inclined his head to the rounded white feline. "That butterball over there was the cook who helped Corin and Princess Yuki escape in time, and it appears he's become an uncle figure of sorts to the Prince. Anyway," he added, before Haru could comment on his apparent disregard for the podgy cat, "Baron took on the task of looking for Princess Yuki and only recently did we finally cross paths."

"He looked for one person for five years?" Haru could barely comprehend how much hope and belief would keep someone looking for that long.

"There were enough travel stones for him to return occasionally and check on the Prince, from what Baron told me. In that time, it appears Corin grew and decided to try to right the wrong his grandfather is doing." Toto sighed. "So much weighing on the shoulders of such a young kitten."

Haru didn't instantly reply, but she agreed with all her heart. "It's too much," she eventually conceded.

"I was afraid the news of his mother would be the straw to break the camel's back," Toto said. His beady black eyes turned to Haru. "I think it very nearly was."

"Do you honestly think I made so much of a difference?" the ballerina scoffed.

"Yes. Yes, I do. He lost his mother, Haru, and you were there to remind him he wasn't alone. That can make all the difference in the world."

"I still..."

"Haru, he hasn't had a mother in his life since he was ten. Muta's been as good as he could have been, perhaps even becoming a sort of father to him, but Corin has lacked any motherly care in the years when his life has become hardest. In the years when he has needed to grow up at a pace that no child should have to. And then you were there to be the shoulder to cry on."

Haru processed this much more slowly than she probably should have done. "Are you saying he saw me as a mother?"

"I'm saying you were there when you needed to be. See it more as a sisterly role, if you will. But my point is that you did make a difference, even if you're afraid to admit it." Toto cocked his head to one side. "What's so terrible about making a difference?"

"There's nothing wrong with it," Haru defended. "It's just..."

"You don't think you're good enough to make a difference," Toto finished. "But you are, Haru. And I think you're going to change so many people and melt so many hearts just by being yourself." He looked away, over to the table where discussions were still raging. "And I can think of several toys that need their hearts melting."

ooOoo

Eventually, despite all her reluctance, Haru decided that she should probably involve herself in the planning. Or, at least, find out just what kind of madness she was about to be thrown into. Perhaps luckily for her, she didn't have much to catch up on when she finally approached the table; it appeared they were struggling to agree on much apart from the big, fat point that _something_ had to be done.

"These tunnels lead right up to the edge of the Kingdom, if we could just find a way to cross the cat-made portal in the camp..." Muta was saying. He was leaning over the map, obscuring most of it by his girth, and only just managing to reach the border described.

"Then what?" Robin, the plastic archer, stood with his arms crossed and a barely-concealed scowl threatening to cross his face. "We know how to get close to the King's camp, the problem still remains how to _enter_."

"Why do you need to enter this camp?" Haru stood awkwardly to the side, watching but still not entirely sure what they were trying to achieve. "Is the Cat King there?"

"We have no idea where the Cat King is," Robin answered bluntly.

"We have no word from any of our sources that he's been seen in the Toy Kingdom," Muta amended gruffly. "He hasn't even been seen in the camp. That means he's probably either still in the Human World or – more likely – that he's returned to the Cat Kingdom."

"Congratulations, you think of that all by yourself?" Toto taunted, finally deigning to join the massing of toys and cats alike.

Muta growled. "I see five years in the Human World haven't changed you in the slightest, you overgrown pigeon."

"Muta, Toto..." Corin was rubbing his eyes with one paw. Haru could see a smile creeping onto his face all the same. She guessed that the two creatures had built up a reputation of sorts. "For this, at least, could you just postpone your bickering? I'm sure you can catch up on five years' worth of fighting once this is done. Assuming you don't break anything," he added.

Haru glanced around the room. Apart from the stone table, there wasn't much _to_ break.

"Yes, Corin."

"Yeah, alright."

The Prince appeared satisfied with the reluctant agreements, and turned his attention to Haru. "This war will only end either when my grandfather releases his control from the Toy Kingdom, or the crown passes onto someone else who _will_. Since, from past experience, we're very sure the first scenario won't ever occur, we have to move onto the second choice."

"You're trying to kill the King," Haru translated. The thought still came with a moment of horror; both for the deed and for the difficulty in achieving that task. She tried not to think of how many toys and cats would possibly be lost in the attempt. Or how many had already been lost. Haru suspected they had been attempting this for many years now; the fact that the King still lived and the Toy Kingdom was still falling to pieces was evidence enough.

"Though I'm loathe to admit it, yes. He won't see sense and even those in the Cat Kingdom are tiring of this senseless war. Most never supported it in the first place. But as long as my grandfather is ruling, this war will never end. I just wish we could find a way around it..."

"We have tried," Muta said. Suddenly his voice had lost its previous growl and was surprisingly tender as he regarded his adopted son. Suddenly Haru could see how he had raised Corin through some of the toughest years of their lives. "Many times. He won't abdicate, we know that. He won't end this war, we know that too. Whatever happens, it isn't your fault."

"Muta's right," Hiromi agreed. "So don't blame yourself."

Muta spared Hiromi a grateful look.

"Anyway," the fairy doll continued, shifting the attention back to Haru, "the camp is where the King established a permanent portal between the Cat Kingdom and the Toy Kingdom. If we get to the camp and through the portal, we can get into the Cat Kingdom, where the Cat King almost permanently resides."

"For his own safety," Robin muttered from the sidelines.

"After previous attempts on his life, is it really all that surprising?" Hiromi countered.

"Look, even if we do get into the camp, through the portal and into the Cat Kingdom, we've still got a long way to go," the archer returned. "We have no idea where the portal leads out in the Kingdom, nor do we know how to find the King once we're there or how to get past the legions of guards he's sure to have."

Hiromi groaned. "Thanks, Robin. What do you think, Baron?"

The wooden figurine suddenly had all eyes on him. Once again Haru saw the soldier-like stance he took on. "I think Robin has a point," he said quietly. Before Robin could comment, he raised a hand for silence. "However, our strategy will have to be executed and planned in parts. We have no way of knowing where the portal takes us or how to get into the King's palace, so that is something we will have to tackle once we're past the portal." He paused. Thought through his next decision. "We should plan how to reach the portal. Plans beyond that would be pure speculation."

Muta grunted some form of assent, and pointed out the camp on the map again. "So, from here it's a two day trek to the camp. That is, if we use the tunnels."

"Definitely using the tunnels," Hiromi agreed.

"It looks longer to me," Haru commented.

"That's because we have to go around the Frozen Ocean," Robin snapped. "If we took the above ground route, we'd have to walk across the ice, over mountains and through forest. We're taking the tunnels."

"There's no reason to be like that," Hiromi defended. "How was she to know?"

"She could have looked _properly_ at the map..."

"Anyway," the fairy continued, "we're definitely taking the tunnels. Case closed. After two days, we should be at the edge of the camp and, hopefully by then, we'll have a better idea of how to get past the guards."

"We're not going to plan?" Muta asked.

"I think Hiromi believes that two days is plenty of time to come up with a solution," Baron said. "And the longer we put this off, the longer the war will continue. However, it might be good to have some plan," he added, looking to Hiromi with a no-nonsense look, "since all previous attempts to get to the portal have ended in failure."

"We've only tried twice recently," the fairy pouted. "And now we have you with us, so it's sure to go better this time."

"She might have a point," Corin agreed. "You have escaped from my grandfather's guards several times in the past. You will certainly make a difference."

Haru thought of Toto's comments from earlier – "You don't think you're good enough to make a difference" – and watched Baron momentarily struggle with Corin's conclusion. He nodded his head in defeat, but not before Haru had spotted his hesitancy. It appeared she wasn't the only one with insecurities.

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Virtual cookies to whomever correctly guesses where Corin's name comes from. Which, to be honest, I'm surprised hasn't been used before, all things considered.**


	12. Wednesday 12th December

"_Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with melody that would last forever." ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich_

x

Wednesday 12th December 2012: Warmed

The scar was gone.

Not faded, not sort-of-there-if-you-squint, not even a trick of the light.

Her scar was well and truly gone.

She turned her hand over, staring at the perfect porcelain skin that she was slowly – much too slowly – becoming accustomed to, and ran one delicate finger over the palm. There was no indent, no sign of weakness, nothing to indicate she had ever cracked herself. If she hadn't been so sure, she would have been tempted to pass away the crack as a bad dream – a nightmare – but she knew she hadn't been imagining it. She knew she was right.

"Haru? Is everything alright?"

Haru abruptly stopped her close inspection, moving her hand away. "It's fine, Toto." she lied. She picked up her feet and hurried to join the group.

"Pick up your paws then, Chicky," said Muta, glancing behind him to where the ballerina lagged. "This trek is going to take quite long enough without stragglers."

"Do you have to be quite so boorish, pudding-brain?" Toto snapped.

"Hey, gargoyle, it may have escaped your notice, but I'm not a toy like yourself," the cat retorted. "This walk is going to be quite long enough for me without extending it due to certain toys slacking."

Haru smiled grimly to herself and kept her head down. Two days watching Muta and Toto interact was enough to illustrate their tendency for constant bickering. They didn't mean anything by it. Much.

They had been walking for over six hours now. They had started that morning, with their scant plans being drawn up the day before, and Haru was beginning to sicken of the monotony of the tunnels. Conversation had risen and died at various times, but now a sort of grim determination had taken over most of the walkers, rendering it silent apart from the occasional bickering of Toto and Muta. Haru wasn't sure whether she liked the silence. It gave her too much time to think over her own predicament – which was something she had studiously tried to ignore for the better part of the week.

Baron hadn't been too happy about Haru joining the group, but since the rest of the toys were going – and there was no way Haru was going to stay in the tunnels by herself to wallow in self-pity – he had eventually relented. The case of the transformer wolf probably worked in her favour too. Robin and Hiromi hadn't been too sure of Haru accompanying them either, but Haru had eventually convinced them enough that she could be of some help. She wasn't entirely sure how she had managed that, but manage that she had and now she walked in silence at the back of the group.

The strange procession of toys and cats abruptly stopped, breaking the silence with a splattering of conversation that, apart from Toto and Muta's occasional spats, was livelier than any conversation that had occurred in the last four and a half hours or so. Being at the back, Haru couldn't make out what had caused this change. The tunnel ahead – what she could see of it, anyway – looked suddenly darker than the previous corridors.

She eased herself towards the front.

"...no choice," Corin was saying. "We'll have to take the above-ground route."

"Are you mad?" Robin retorted. "The Frozen Ocean is dangerous – your cats will freeze to death – and much too exposed. If the King's soldiers are looking for us, we'll be sitting ducks."

"Corin has a point," Baron calmly supported. "We cannot take this route."

Haru finally saw what had caused the commotion.

Before her, where the tunnel should have stretched out into the continuous monotony of dull, eerie lights and uneven ground, was only a wall of rock. It didn't take much to see a rock fall of sorts had occurred, blocking their way and bringing the tunnel to an abrupt halt.

"There are other routes we can take – the tunnels stretch across the Kingdom – so we just need to detour round..." Robin argued.

"The other tunnels are even more dangerous," Baron reasoned. "You know that, Robin. We blocked off the other tunnels when it became clear that other, less friendly, toys were using them. This route is the only way we can take."

"Knew we should have left the other tunnels open," the archer grumbled.

"And left us open for feral attack? We were doing what was best." Baron sighed and his one ear flattened back in reluctance. "We have to take the above-ground route." He looked to the rest of the group. "There's an opening to ground level a little way back. We take that course."

Haru lingered a little after the rest had gone to take another look at the blockage. Perhaps paranoia was creeping up on her, but something didn't seem quite right. The whole thing looked too neat, sharp for her liking. Despite the rounded nature of the stones, some edges were flat, as if sliced into pieces rather than natural breakage.

"Hey, slowcoach! Hurry up!"

Haru jumped, and quickly hastened after the rest. The last thing she wanted was to be left behind.

ooOoo

The tunnel came out into what appeared to be an old boathouse, although the planks were rotting away now and only a frozen surface marked where the water had once flowed. She felt the air change around her on exiting the tunnels, leaving the warmth of the underground and stepping into a more exposed environment altogether. She couldn't shiver, but she knew it was cold. Just watching the cats was enough to convince her of that.

"Hey, butterball, I would have thought your extra layers of fat would protect you!" Toto cackled as Muta, paws pulled tight around his cloak, shuffled out of the tunnel.

"Go fry yourself, you big chicken," he muttered. "I'm freezing my tail off here."

Corin and his military-clad cats didn't fare much better.

"I did warn you," Robin noted cynically.

"Really, Robin," Hiromi scolded. "It's not nice to gloat."

Paris, the wooden horse, stepped up the ladder with a little difficulty, but finally managed his comrades. He neighed, and his breath came out in misted clouds. "The Frozen Ocean will be even more exposed," he said.

"Gee, _thanks_." Muta scowled and attempted to pull the already-straining cloak further around him. "That makes me feel _so_ much better."

"Now is not the time for petty squabbles," Baron reprimanded. "Now, is everyone ready to go?"

"Gimme a moment to thaw my paws," Muta grumbled. "My claws are in danger of turning to icicles."

"I'm afraid not much can be done for that."

"Yeah, I guessed as much." Muta blew onto his paws then, when it appeared that made little-to-no difference, he stuffed them beneath his cloak. "Whatever. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"How is everyone else faring?"

A mumbled chorus of 'fine' was the grand response he received. Considering the cold surroundings, this appeared to be as enthusiastic as Baron was expecting. He nodded once then moved towards the shoreline that the boathouse opened onto. Haru hurried after him.

"Wait, are we actually crossing the sea?" Then, in desperate clarification, she added, "On foot?"

"A boat would hardly suffice in these circumstances," Baron remarked. In evidence to his comment, he motioned towards the unmoving ocean, frozen in a moment of icy time. "Don't worry, Miss Haru. This ocean has been frozen for the past decade. It's not going to break any time soon." Even as he stepped onto the ice, Haru could see the frozen water was buffered by a layer of snow.

She eased her way cautiously after him, privately relieved when neither the ground nor her feet gave way beneath her. She took another careful step, and looked up to see Baron watching her with an unexpected expression.

Humour.

She had barely seen him crack a smile, let alone show a modicum of humour in the time she had known him. The new emotion caught her unawares and she nearly slipped. She righted herself before she could fall – or before anyone could offer their aid – but noticed Baron start to move to help.

"What?"

Baron shook his head. "It was nothing."

"What was so funny?"

"Merely your stubbornness to refuse my reassurance. Just trust me, Miss Haru; this ocean is in no danger of defrosting any time soon."

"If you say so."

"After ten years, it would be pure bad luck for it to change now. It would also require the weather to change so drastically as to melt the entire ocean. It hasn't in the past decade."

Haru didn't have much to say to that. She merely concentrated on not slipping as she walked through the layer of snow, buffering her from the slickness of the ice.

"I wouldn't worry too much, Haru," Toto reassured. He hopped out to where the ballerina was gingerly walking; the stone crow appeared little concerned as to the dangers of frozen waters. "If the ice can take the walking Christmas pudding over there, it can certainly take you."

"Hey, I heard that!"

"It would seem that your ears aren't frozen up then!" Toto retorted.

"From what I've heard, many toys have crossed this ocean without harm," Corin reassured as he approached the porcelain ballerina. Toto was already moving away to indulge in a fully-fledged fight with Muta. Unlike Toto, Corin was definitely feeling the cold. Haru could see his fur was standing on end and that, despite his best attempts to hide it, he was huddling a little to retain whatever heat remained. "After all," he added in a strangely barking laugh, "it's certainly cold enough."

"It's not as cold as it used to be," Baron remarked. He slowed down to join the cat and ballerina. "I have crossed this ocean several times before, and every time the weather was much worse. It appears it has subsided recently."

"Worse?" Corin echoed. His breath came out in familiar mists. "It can be worse than this?"

"You've never been here?" Haru asked.

The Prince shook his head. "We've always used the tunnels. And let's just hope the weather doesn't return to 'worse'."

"If it's any reassurance, there's an island we can rest at. The coast of the Kingdom curves round in a large 'C' format, with our route cutting across the middle, and an island is located approximately around the centre of the bay, straight in our path," Baron offered. He glanced back. "I think your companions will appreciate the chance for cover."

Corin glanced back also. "Agreed."

The walk across the ice was, if possible, perhaps even more monotonous than the tunnel pathway. The great expanse was covered in an icy layer of white, with more white picking up where the sea left off in the form of dull, flat clouds. Somewhere, within the vastness of the sky's whitewashed ceiling hid the sun, glimmering in a pale halo of ivory.

As one hour, two hours, ticked by, only just marked by the movement of that same pale halo, Haru began to experiment on the ice, skidding forward to see just how icy it was and just how well her porcelain ballet pumps gripped the ground. Since her limbs didn't tire, only her brain, she had the same amount of energy as she had first started out with. So, despite the fact that the cats were beginning to lag, Haru was still relatively fresh.

She began to up her experiments, earning a few tired laughs as she slipped and slid around the ice, alleviating her boredom in whatever way she saw fit – which, in this case, was a mutilated form of ice skating. One over-enthusiastic spin skidded her into Baron.

She laughed her apology, even as she lost her balance again and Baron had to catch her before she fell. His mouth twitched in a ghost of a smile.

"We are trekking across the Frozen Ocean, with the possibilities of the King's soldiers, feral toys, and goodness knows what else, all in sub-zero temperatures, and you are finding this exceptionally funny?" he asked. The smile flickered into sight again.

Haru laughed again, and this time it came out a little breathless. "I needed something to raise my spirits, right? And..." she shrugged her shoulders, the action feeling gloriously light. "Well, I'm just happy to be out of those tunnels. Living down there must send you half crazy."

"I think the war has already done that," Baron murmured.

Haru suspected he hadn't meant her to hear him, and for a moment she didn't know what to say. But then she pushed that aside and did what she should do best – be herself. She tugged at his sleeve. "Hey, when life's dark you've got to enjoy whatever light comes your way, right?" She tugged again, but with more insistency. She stepped back, making him break from his usual walking rhythm. "So come join. Have a little fun, even if it is just once a while."

She dragged him forward a little more, forcing him to break into a stumbling of half-hearted running.

"Come on, Baron. I'll race you."

She broke away into a run, grinning to herself when she heard Baron pick up his own pace.

"Race to where?"

Haru laughed. "Who cares?"

Haru knew she was fast – as a human, anyway, although she was even faster as a toy – but Baron was faster. He caught up with her in a matter of seconds and Haru grinned his way.

"Perhaps you need a bigger handicap in future."

To her delight, he grinned back. "Perhaps." He sped up just enough to give himself a foot-long lead. "Then again, perhaps you just need to run faster."

"Perhaps you should be the gentleman and let the lady win!" Haru called back. She put on just enough speed to catch up, but not quite enough to overtake. She needn't have worried; Baron slowed just enough to give her the lead. Running, she discovered, was different as a toy. She had no muscles that could cramp, no muscles to tire; she literally felt like she could run forever. And, without the limitation of breath required for respiration, she was in no danger of running out of breath. She could talk – shout, laugh, probably even sing – without her running leaving a mark on such activities. It felt – just for a moment – like a slice of eternity.

She laughed, throwing her head back as she spread her arms out, embracing the wind that now whipped against her. "I feel like I could fly!" she cried back to Baron. She heard him laugh and her own smile grew wider. She felt the ice beneath her feet and suddenly spun on the spot in a laughing moment of spontaneity.

Either her balance needed work or Baron wasn't expecting her to stop, because a moment later they collided. A moment later she found herself on the snow, Baron to one side of her. He didn't move, and as Haru shifted to a kneeling position, she began to worry hitting the ice had knocked him unconscious. And then he rolled onto his back and released a full-hearted laugh.

"Eh, I probably should have warned you I was about to do that, eh?" Haru asked.

"Probably," he agreed. His laughter dwindled, but remained in his eyes.

At this proximity, Haru suddenly registered the bright green of his eyes, which seemed all the brighter for his humour. She realised she had neither been this close nor seen him laughing and the combination of the two was surprisingly captivating.

"Hey, Baron?"

"Yes, Miss Haru?"

"Could you just call me Haru?" She smiled weakly, and suddenly the request made her feel more embarrassed than annoyed. "All my friends do."

"I am a friend?"

The surprise in his voice hurt her more than she would like to admit. She covered her hurt quickly with a mock-grimace that was only half faked and adding, "After the past week, how can you still doubt that?" She prodded his arm. "Of course you're my friend." Instead of prodding his arm, she now tugged at his sleeve. "Now, come on. I think we've made enough of a fool out of ourselves."

He nodded and pushed himself up and, in doing so, brought his face closer to Haru's. His eyes blinked, as if surprised by the proximity, and Haru knew that if she could blush, she'd probably be blushing by now.

And then his eyes flicked to something else. They widened. Abruptly he was rising to his feet, almost stumbling in the process with a distinct lack of feline grace.

"Oi, Baron! Haru!" Muta, quickly followed by the rest, arrived on the scene. "Have you quite finished messing about?"

Haru didn't move, still kneeling on the iced surface. Baron wasn't looking to her or the newcomers though.

"The sky... Look at the sky..."

Now Haru looked up. Where the sky had once been an expanse of white cloud, now it was a scattering of smaller, lighter clouds, with the sun proudly shining, no longer obscured by rolling clouds. "So the sun's out," she said. "So what?"

"The sun never shines on the Frozen Ocean," Robin murmured. It appeared even he was to surprised to exercise his usual curt manner. "It's never been this clear before."

"Or warm," Hiromi added.

Indeed, when they spoke there was no longer misted breath, and Muta wasn't keeping his cloak so tightly held about him anymore.

"What'd you think this means?" the rounded cat asked.

Baron was the only one to answer.

"It means change."

ooOoo

The sun continued to shine even as they trekked and, despite the reassurance that warmth often brings, Haru could feel tensions – like the temperature – beginning to rise. Haru couldn't help but feel relieved as the island marking the halfway point came ever closer. Something had changed and, although they didn't understand how or what, there was a mutually accepted conclusion that it couldn't be good.

And, as if to worsen things, Haru's paranoia began to play up on her.

She grabbed Baron's sleeve for the second time in five minutes, staring up at the island they were quickly approaching. "I'm _sure_ I saw something this time."

Baron paused. Stared up at the same island. "Maybe there are feral toys inland," he suggested, although his tone gently implied that he didn't believe it was too much to worry about.

"Maybe." Haru didn't feel convinced – or reassured – by this reasoning. She still remembered the difficulties they had encountered last time they'd head-butted with a feral toy. If she had followed to the normal toy rules, she would still have a souvenir to prove it.

As things were, though, she wasn't following the normal toy rules and so her scar had – somehow, amazingly – healed by itself. This was a fact she still needed to tell the others. At some point though. She had pushed the matter to one side for the time being and studiously ignored it so far.

Another glint between the frosted trees, and this time Haru was sure it wasn't her mind playing tricks. She was almost equally sure it wasn't as disorganised as feral toys. There was something more... organised to the movements she was spotting.

She grabbed Baron's sleeve. Again.

"Wait." She stopped. "There's something there. I know it."

Something in her voice caught Baron's attention, for he also stopped. Glanced back. Motioned for the others to pause. "What exactly are you sure of, Miss Haru?"

She pursed her lips at the 'miss' title, the formal address both annoying and unsettling her. She reminded herself that she was, indeed, very sure that something bad was at the island, and gathered together her convictions. "There's something waiting for us at the island. And it's not welcoming."

"So what are you suggesting?"

She licked her lips hesitantly. If she had been human, they probably would have been dry. As things stood though, they were merely porcelain. "Perhaps we shouldn't stop there."

"Are you mad? My paws need a rest!"

"If there is something waiting for us, Muta, she may be right," Baron defended. He looked to Haru. "You're sure?"

Haru nodded. "Yes."

"Then we carry on."

Haru was more than a little surprised at the quick trust. Or maybe, her mind added, he was less being trustful of her judgement, and more being _mis_trustful of the island's safety. Either way, her heart lifted at the avoidance of the island.

The decision had barely been made when Haru's paranoia spoke up again – something which it appeared to be doing on a much more regular basis than Haru being accustomed to – and she glanced back to the island even as they started to walk. Something else caught the sun's light, glimmering for a moment, and this time it was significantly closer to the edge of the island.

"Baron..."

"The King's soldiers!" Suddenly one of the Prince's soldiers was shouting and the rest of the cats on their side were grouping in formation, bringing out an assortment of weapons before making a run towards the charging felines.

Haru stepped back. The world rocked for a moment.

"What...?"

She glanced down and, to her horror, saw cracks in the previously solid ice. She grabbed Baron's arm just as he was preparing to join Corin's soldiers. "Wait!" She turned, repeating her cry to the rest of the group. "We need to get on land. The ice is breaking!"

Robin smirked. "Don't be so naive. We said that this ocean had been frozen for the past ten years. What kind of trick–?"

The ice groaned.

Made some definite cracking sounds.

Haru raised one eyebrow. "See?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, I think now would be a good time to practise some hard sprinting in that direction. Quickly," Baron added. For some, he didn't need to say it twice; the majority of the toys – and Muta – began a run for the nearest shore, but Corin remained. "Your Highness..." Baron began.

"I should help my soldiers," the young royal murmured. "I should be by their side..."

"They are fighting to protect you," Baron replied gently. "If you die here, their efforts will have been in vain. Now, please, Your Highness, _run_."

The ice cracked again.

Corin looked to Baron with evidence of pain and surrender. Haru once again remembered his tender age of fifteen – an age at which such a choice should never have to be made – and suddenly felt sick of the war all over again. She took his paw. "You need to run, Corin."

He looked surprised at her words, but something finally broke. He nodded.

As they sprinted, the cracks and groans of the ice grew louder still. The ground began to shake, tilting with every footstep and almost unsteadying Haru on more than one occasion. And, on each occasion, Baron grabbed her arm and righted her.

Glance back once, it appeared the soldiers weren't doing any better. Neither the King's, nor the Prince's, were backing down and the ice was still cracking. She looked away, guilt already stirring in her stomach. Baron had been right, but it didn't mean she had to like it.

As they neared the shoreline, the ice began to shiver and crack underfoot. One wrong step left Haru with one leg stuck to her knee in the water. She had no muscles to spasm to the cold, but the shock momentarily left her head spinning. She pulled herself out, but from her new vantage point she could see the cracks snaking out, the patterns entwining almost beautifully in their deep complexity. She pushed herself up, much too slowly than was needed.

She could hear shouting, but she wasn't listening. She only became aware of the others when someone approached her and, in a surprisingly fluid movement, picked her up into their arms. The ice was worsening, but at the last moment the terrain changed from ice to solid land. She was gingerly placed onto the ground.

"Miss Haru? Miss Haru?" Baron's face appeared before her. "Is everything quite alright?"

She blinked. The worst of the shock passed. "Yes, I... I just scared myself." She closed her eyes and, not for the first time, wished it was in her capacity to shiver. "How's everyone else?"

"All the toys, Muta and Corin have crossed safely."

She opened her eyes. Registered how the iced ocean had changed to a shifting, moving and very _fluid_ surface. "Corin's soldiers?"

"Gone," Baron murmured. "As are the King's. It's just us and the island now."

Haru placed a hand on Baron's arm and used him as support to stagger to her feet. Her head still spun a little; it was all a little hard to take in. The water, despite now being defrosted, was still life-threateningly cold. Falling into it would probably induce shock and, if none of the felines had appeared, then the likelihood that they had survived were acutely narrow.

She glanced to the remaining survivors. Further out, she could see the sun edging further towards the horizon, and she realised this would be the first night she spent out under the stars in this wrecked, broken world.

She wondered if there'd be stars.

She looked out to the expanse of wide, deep water.

"What now?"

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Cookies go to _inulover1993_ and _Vorserkeien_ for being the only two to realise that Corin came from the Narnian book of _The Horse and His Boy_. Aw heck I love you all, cookies for everyone! For those of you who are interested, the coincidence I was refering to was the fact that Corin's father (in TH&HB) was called King Lune. That's your little tibit of information for today.**

**Merry Christmas.**

**Cat.**


	13. Thursday 13th December

"_Christmas is not so much about opening our presents as opening our hearts." – Janice Maeditere_

x

Thursday 13th December 2012: Opening our Hearts

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Thursday morning was mostly spent on crafting a raft of sorts to carry the stranded individuals back onto the mainland, which was conducted mostly by the toys on the island. With their bodies more prone to exhaustion, Muta and Corin had slept through the night – not soundly, Haru knew; she had awoken several times when nightmares had crept on Corin, and tried not to listen while Muta calmed him down.

Haru, it had to be said, didn't have many skills in boat-crafting. She had said as much when chores were being distributed. As things were, though, there were plenty of tasks to be done, so Haru was sent to collect wood, while Robin and Hiromi looked for possible food. While toys usually had no need for food, plants naturally grew berries and, with the availability of this food, other animals that did require nutrition had, over time, migrated into the Toy Kingdom. And she could only guess that Corin (and most definitely Muta) would be starving after yesterday's events.

Paris had been given the same chore, but Haru had insisted she was fine to collect firewood by herself, and so had headed into the woodland alone. Perhaps it had been unwise – heck, it probably was all kinds of stupid, now she thought about it – but the space was something she hadn't had for the past week. Ever since falling into this strange new world, she had either been tagging along behind Baron or been confined to the dark labyrinth of the underground passages.

The sun was still out. The sky had been clear and blue ever since yesterday, and even at this time of the morning it was beginning to warm up the earth. Sporadic patches of snow and slivers of ice hid in corners and under rocks, but the worst of the winter was dying away.

It had made the toys nervous.

Haru had sensed the nerves unsettling the longer they stayed here and the longer the sun remained obliviously bright – a summer kind of bright, not the wishy-washy manner of a winter sun – and it was beginning to show. Haru tried, and failed, to worry, but in all honesty she was just revelling in the return of the sun. She had been living underground for too long.

Her arms now filled with wood, she took one last moment to linger in the peaceful wooded environment before turning back to their makeshift camp.

The other toys were yet to return, so only Baron was present, except for the two remaining true felines that slept quietly at the edge of the camp. Baron had been carving wood into a boat-lined structure, but at some point recently he had abandoned the project. Instead he sat at the other side of the camp, just where the woodland gave way to the shoreline. He watched the waves lap calmly at the three feet of sand.

Haru quietly set her firewood in the middle and wandered over to his side.

"You look like you're contemplating something."

She took a seat on one of the more flattened boulders. She let her feet drift on the edge of the sand.

"This isn't right."

Haru sighed and dug her shoe into the sand. "Maybe. But it is nice."

"I remember the early days of this war. Before we lost the monarch and this world began to die. Even then, this world was suffering; it greyed with time and the despair of every toy. When we did lose the monarch, this ocean was the first to be hit. The storms grew so wild that no toy could ever hope to cross it and then the temperature dropped. Instead of the rainstorms, we had snowstorms and a coldness that froze the ocean itself." Baron stared out across the becalmed sea. His eyes dulled a little. "And then we lost the sun."

"I'm sorry, but what–?"

"The storms and clouds blocked out the sun. We had light, but it came slowly – grudgingly – through the fog and cloud and we became accustomed to a world made of filtered sunlight. This is the first time this world has seen sunlight in five years."

"Isn't that good then?" Haru asked. "Doesn't that mean that something's changing for the better?"

"Oh, something has definitely changed. But I doubt it's for the better."

Haru thought over his words. She couldn't deny she was disappointed in his pessimism. "That's a little negative, isn't it?"

"This world has only been worsening over the years. I cannot see how a positive change could have occurred." He still didn't turn to her, preferring to watch the sea stretched out before him. In the distance the mainland stood. With the snow melting, it looked uncannily green. "I have a bad feeling the Cat King is involved in this somehow." He sighed. "Perhaps there is a toy out there somewhere with the monarch's magic, but I cannot imagine how that would be. Perhaps the toy is even siding with the Cat King..."

"Now you're just being stupidly cynical," Haru muttered.

Baron had no real answer to this.

Haru sighed and leant back, picking up a flat stone from the woodland setting behind her. The stone was smooth and cool in her hand, calming in its own way, really. She weighed it up in her palm before drawing back her arm and throwing it across the water. It skimmed once, twice, three times before sinking into the dark depths.

"Toto was right. You are tired of hope."

"Hope merely sets you up for a greater fall."

"Hope puts you back on your feet even when it'd be easier to stay down," Haru replied. "Hope gives you the strength to go on. Hope stops you from drowning in despair." She remembered Toto's words. "If don't hope, we are lost," she quietly echoed.

Baron stood to his feet. "What if it'd be easier to give in to that despair?" he demanded. "What if there is no better day coming, what if this is it? Then perhaps it'd be better to remain lost."

Haru looked away. She had picked up another stone earlier and had been turning it over in her hands. It had warmed slightly in her palm, and now felt clammy against her skin. She rose to her feet, dropping it to the ground in the action. She looked up to the Baron, stepping closer even as her eyes narrowed. "Then we become bitter. Like you."

She walked away.

Hiromi and Robin returned to the camp just as Haru walked out. Robin spared a glance, but continued otherwise unaffected, moving to drop the two dead mice beside the assigned firewood. Hiromi was more startled.

"Hey, Haru..." When the ballerina in question didn't pause, Hiromi looked back to the two toys before her.

"Leave her be." Baron sunk back into his makeshift seat, staring, lost, out at the sea before him. "She needs some peace right now."

Hiromi dropped her collection of herbs by the mice and stormed over to Baron. Disregarding her slender form, she dragged him to his feet by his bowtie. "Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, I am thoroughly ashamed of you. She does not need peace – or space, or time, or whatever half-baked excuses you try to make – she needs to _talk_."

"Hiromi..."

"And, I swear on my tattered tired wings, you _will_ go and talk to her or, so help me, I'll make the Snowplains look like a summer's day out. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now go rebuild whatever bridges you've just burnt."

"I didn't–"

"GO!"

Robin looked to Hiromi, one eyebrow raised, unimpressed. "Was that really necessary?"

Hiromi smiled sweetly, smoothing her dress as she did so. "I saw Baron laugh for the first time in years yesterday. I'm not about to let Haru walk away from him because of some stupid comment Baron made. Not when she's reminding him what it means to hope again."

ooOoo

"Haru?" Following the ballerina was easier than Baron had anticipated; she had barely wandered out of the camp, preferring to stop a little way off the path. The camp was far enough away to be out of sight and hearing, so they had the luxury of privacy at least. That was assuming Hiromi hadn't snuck after him to watch.

Knowing her, he wouldn't put it past the doll.

"Haru?"

The ballerina kept her head turned away, continuing to stare sullenly at a naive patch of grass. "Leave me alone."

In truth, he was tempted to back away. As things were though, he knew Hiromi had been right. He sighed, sunk onto a knarred ensnaring of roots which twisted round to form a seat of sorts. He forced a thin chuckle. "Well, I would, but Hiromi has made it quite clear that she'll be very annoyed should I return without at least attempting to talk." When Haru didn't reply, he sighed and found himself examining the ground beneath him. "Haru, I'm sorry if my... opinion... bothered you..."

There was another sigh, this time from the ballerina as she took a seat beside him. "Boy, you really are clueless, aren't you? Nothing like Shizuku's Baron," she added, mostly to herself. She looked to the figurine, this time ready to meet his eyes. "I'm bothered, yes, but most of all... I'm disappointed. I grew up listening to Shizuku tell all her stories of this noble, brave hero – stories that she took from her inspiration of you," Haru said sharply, "and those stories inspired me to be better. To be braver. To be surer. To believe in who I am. And then I find you and... you're not him. You're broken." She sighed. "You're broken," she whispered.

"I'm... sorry."

"What made you like this? How were you left so... so... desolated?"

"Are you sure you want to hear the story?"

Haru hesitated. Then nodded. "I need to know."

"Alright. You already know the beginning of my story – the stupid human who became involved in toy affairs and suffered for it – but I missed out a few crucial points. Or one point, to be exact. You see, the figurine I had found was none other than the monarch. She... was a cat figurine, much like myself, going by the name of Louise. She took care of me while I was recovering from the shock of my change. And then, when I decided to help the cause she was fighting for, we worked together." He gave a dry, humourless laugh. "You can guess what happened next. We fell in love."

"What happened?"

Baron turned his haunted eyes to Haru. "She's gone. The Cat King burnt her. And now I've lost her and this whole world is dying because the monarch's magic is gone with her." He looked away, his voice suddenly growing thick with emotion. He rubbed angrily at his eyes. "Blast it, I still can't even cry. Sometimes I hate being stuck in this half-life of a... a limbo. Now do you see why I struggle to hope? I have lost Shizuku and I have lost Louise and it feels like everything I care about I eventually lose, and there's nothing that I can do to change it."

He hesitated. There was the cool feel of porcelain hands covering his own carved ones.

"Of course there is," Haru murmured. "You helped look after Corin all those years. You saved me too many times already. The others look up to you. Of course," she added quietly, "that's no use if you don't believe in yourself. Maybe I was wrong in what I said before. Maybe there is part of the original Humbert in you – the one that Shizuku loved and admired – but you have to remember that. You have to believe it."

She rose gently to her feet, but Baron's hand suddenly caught her wrist.

"Wait. There's a little bit more I must say."

Haru lingered tentatively. She glanced in the direction of the camp, and then took her seat beside Baron. "Alright. I'll listen."

For the first time since Baron had begun his explanation, he picked up his head and finally met Haru's gaze. His smile was sad, bittersweet and tinged with just a colouring of pity. "You never wondered about your cat-speaking abilities, did you?"

"What–?"

"Just listen. Please. We have met once before, when you were too young to remember; you were only a baby at the time. It was a year or so after I had... become what you see now, maybe a year and a half, and I was already beginning to cause some trouble for the Cat King. Enough for him to try to find a way to blackmail me." He looked pointedly at Haru.

"Me? But..."

"Daichi and Naoko were very dear friends of mine, dear enough for their only daughter to be a valuable bargaining chip. The King stole you away one night to the Cat Kingdom. You were... so young." Baron's face filled with guilt. "I could never forgive myself if my meddling cost my friends another loss. Louise and I managed to return you to the Human World, but barely. You see, it's risky for humans in the Cat Kingdom. You lose your humanity and, if you don't get out by the nest sunrise, you will be stuck as a cat. We made it out, but something – either our close timing or your young age – affected you. You were left with your cat-speaking abilities."

"Baron, I..."

"I fully understand if you hold me responsible–"

She slapped him.

"Would you just listen?" Haru shouted. "For once in your wooden existence, stop assuming you're always in the wrong and just listen! I do _not_ blame you for what happened! You got me out, right? I'm not furry or anything. So I can understand cats, big deal. So what? You were fighting for what you believed was right and, more than that, you had _hope_. So stop apologising and, for once, stand tall like you used to. And I know you once did, because I see it in Shizuku." Haru slowed in her rant. "I see it in Mum and Seiji, and I saw it in Dad, and I can see it in myself sometimes. You have touched so many people's lives without even knowing it and they stand taller because they saw you stand tall and believed they could do the same." She dragged in a heaving sigh. "So stand tall again."

She smiled gently.

"And I'm sorry for the slap. You just needed some sense knocked into you."

A smile tugged at Baron's lips even as he rubbed the cheek which had just suffered the slap. "Acknowledged. However, the story isn't quite finished there."

"Really? What else is there?"

"There are two more items to cover. Firstly, your return didn't go unnoticed. While your parents remained blissfully unaware of your disappearance, I believe Shizuku saw your return." He paused. "She saw _me_."

"Please say you talked to her."

Baron's silence said it all.

She slapped him.

Again.

"Dare I say this, Haru, but you can't knock sense into me for an event that's already happened."

"You should have talked to her," Haru said hoarsely. "She loved you. You owed her that much."

"I was a coward. I could not bring myself to face her and what I had become. But I think Shizuku knew that something other than a mere coma incident had occurred before that. Spotting me only solidified her suspicions."

"She wrote a book based on that," Haru murmured. She remembered the story that Shizuku had written based around Haru's cat-speaking abilities. It had seemed so trivial then – the blue portal that matched the one from the Cat Kingdom, the inclusion of the Baron – she would never have believed it was based on a memory.

"Dear Shizuku always did find her refuge in books," Baron sighed. "I believe she may have overheard the conversation that Louise and I shared."

"What were you talking about?"

"I asked Louise a favour. I feared that the Cat King would attempt a repeat of that night, so I requested for her to place a protection charm over you. The Cat King would never have the guts to attempt to kidnap any full-grown human – he is too much of a coward to take on anyone who could fight back – so you were most vulnerable at the time. He would not be able to come near you – nor would his soldiers – and so you were safe."

"Not quite safe enough it would seem," Haru mumbled.

Baron inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Since Louise's... Since Louise has gone, her magic must have faded. Enough for it to allow the Cat King to approach and spell you. Never did I imagine that you would once again be dragged into this chaos."

Haru gave him a look that expressively forbade him from blaming himself again. She groaned and rose to her feet. "Listen, Baron, I didn't just get _dragged into this chaos_. Whatever I may have said in the past, I was the one who threw the slipper. I made the decision to intervene. I could have walked away, _but I didn't_. So don't undermine my judgement to suit your guilt. It's insulting."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed their 12/12/12 day yesterday - last time it'll happen in a long time! Golly, that makes me feel old...**

**Merry Christmas!**

**Cat.**


	14. Friday 14th December

"_Christmas is the day that holds all time together." ~ Alexander Smith_

x

Friday 14th December 2012: Time

The crafting of the boats took longer than expected. Long enough for their return to the mainland to be postponed another day. On considering their number (and the weight of a few individuals) it would be impossible for one makeshift boat to carry them all; eventually though three roughly-built crafts were finished and they could finally think about their escape from the island.

Standing on the shoreline, Haru saw the mainland to be significantly greener than before. Despite the toys' misgivings, she smiled a little. This world really was beautiful.

"Chicky? Oi, Chicky!" The rounded cat at the boats waved a large paw. "Stop your dilly-dallying daydreaming or we're leaving without you!"

"Really, pudding-brain, do you have to be so tactless?"

"At least I haven't got a birdbrain."

As Haru neared, Corin caught her eye. He grinned. "I'd forgotten how much I'd missed these arguments."

"After five years, and that's _still_ the best you can come up with, fish-breath?"

"Why, I ought'a...!"

Haru laughed even as the duo began their bickering in the background. "Really? So are you going to volunteer to join them on their boat?"

Corin made an expression of mock horror. At least, Haru thought it was mock. "Are you suggesting we let Muta and Toto take the same boat? Worlds above, they'd never reach the mainland without spilling blood."

Haru laughed again, but this time her attention was caught by the pale blue eye. She stood to the side so only his blue eye watched her, but at her sudden silence, he turned his red eye upon her too. "Is something the matter, Haru?"

"Nothing. I... No, it's nothing."

A sad sort of smile appeared on Corin's face. "It's the eye, isn't it?"

"It just looks... different," Haru admitted.

"I inherited my eyes from my father, who inherited them from his father – not that I like to have anything in common with my grandfather," Corin growled, "but these eyes are a sign of royal heritage." The sharpness dropped from his voice as quickly as it'd come and he looked to Haru with a renewed sadness. He motioned to his blue eye with one tired paw. "I'm afraid it's not quite that simple though. I am blind in this eye."

"...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stared..."

"It's fine. I'm impressed you managed to stay your questions until now, actually. Many a cat would have asked before now." He attempted a small smile, but it rang fake. "A spat with my grandfather a couple of years back left me like this, mostly a combination of bad planning on our part and spells on my grandfather's, but it's a burden I've learnt to counterbalance." That same sad smile flickered. "In such a time, we must learn to deal with what life throws at us."

That said, he turned towards the boats, but Haru was still reeling.

"Wait, Corin... A couple of years back?" she echoed.

Corin paused. He nodded. "Yes."

"How... How old were you?"

He didn't answer, and Haru thought he was going to brush away the question entirely. But then a little of his facade crumbled, even with his back to her. "Thirteen."

"You were fighting at thirteen?"

"I said that we have to learn to deal with life," he said hoarsely, "not that life gives us choices."

ooOoo

"Land! Sweet land!" Muta waddled out of the boat and onto the shore as fast as his short legs would take him. There was a small splattering of laughter at his antics; just enough to indicate that the rest of the seafarers were feeling somewhat similar on this front.

Baron followed quickly after, a recently-carved cane in hand and his other hand keeping his top hat steady. Haru stepped inelegantly out of her boat after him. "Yes, this detour has been somewhat interesting, but it is certainly a relief to be back on track."

"Where do we go now?" Haru asked.

"Through those mountains, Chicky."

Haru paled a little as she glanced over the mountain range sprawling before them. "Through them?"

"There used to be tunnels going through them, but they're filled with feral toys now," Baron said. He looked back to the waiting group. "So now we take the long route. _Over_ them."

"That will take too long," Robin protested.

"Do you want to risk going through those tunnels?"

"We will be exposed on the mountain pathway."

"Then we will have to make our journey quick, won't we?" Baron returned. "Let's move."

"Are the mountain tunnels really so full of feral toys?" Haru quietly asked Toto as they moved towards the towering mountain range. Not that she wanted to go underground again, but she felt like there was something they were skirting around.

"Last I heard – and that was five years ago – they weren't that infested. But five years can change a lot."

"Is that all there is?"

Toto hesitated, and Haru knew he would be lying if he said it was.

"There is something else, isn't there?"

Despite his size, Toto shrank a little. "Really, it's all rumour–"

"Toto..."

"There are stories of something in the mountain," he muttered. "Don't talk to the others about it; most toys just pass it off as superstition, but..."

"But you think there is something?"

"One doesn't live to this age and not gain a few precautions." The stone crow nodded towards the mountains ahead. "Story goes that there's a toy so broken up there that it's gone half mad and not even the monarch's magic would heal it. It won't let itself die, and so it's stuck in a half-limbo state. That's why the mountains tunnels aren't badly infested, so the stories say." Toto paused, mentally negotiating over his next words, but he quietly added, "The stories also say that its madness and brokenness has given it sight."

"Sight?"

"To see the past or future. To _know_ things."

"That's impossible."

"It's what the stories say." He glanced to Baron leading the little group. "And whether or not it's real, I think he believes part of it too."

"Which is why we're taking the long route?"

"I expect so."

Haru glanced to their leader, then back to the crow. She lowered her voice, almost guiltily. "What's so bad about going through the tunnels then? Robin's right; we're going to be badly exposed by the open path. If the tunnels aren't as infested by feral toys as you think, then the only thing we need to avoid is this rumoured toy. And what's so bad about this toy? Doesn't sound like it can do anything."

Toto only stole one last glance to the wooden figurine before dropping his head down and picking up the pace. "Who knows? But if Baron doesn't want to risk meeting it, then neither do we."

ooOoo

"It's no good." Robin appeared from his scouting trip, arriving back to the waiting group with his bow tightly clasped in one hand. It appeared as if he hadn't fired any arrows, but just holding his weapon reassured him. "There are at least two dozen of the King's guards camping at the mountain pathway. There is no way in all the kingdoms we could get through unharmed."

Baron appeared perturbed by the news, but Muta was rather unfazed.

"So we'll go through the mountain tunnels. No biggie."

Robin was watching the quiet feline figurine with frigid understanding. "You can't be thinking of still taking the mountain pathway. That would be madness."

For a moment, Haru thought Baron was going to indulge in some cheesy film reference – assuming he had come across films since his transformation into his current form – but he only nodded in defeat. "You're right. We should start now."

"Now? But it's lunchtime."

"Really, pudding-breath, do you always have to have food on the brain?"

"The tunnels will take a good five hours to travel through; preferably I'd like for us to be out before it is too dark. That way we can see what's waiting outside – I'd rather not be taken unawares by more of the King's guards," Baron curtly explained. "I'm sorry, Muta. We'll eat once we're out."

Muta grumbled. Haru caught a few of his words. "Bet that won't be the case... Bet something will happen then and we'll be doing another mad-dash through another forsaken, ruddy landscape..."

Haru smiled sheepishly to herself. It was true; stuff seemed to happen at the most inopportune moments here.

Regardless of his grumbles – which were steadily becoming louder and painfully audible – Muta followed the group along the mountain range until they came to a gap in the rock-face. It looked just large enough for the white feline, although that didn't stop Toto making comments on the tight-fit.

"If you had feathers, chicken-brain, I'd pluck them!" Muta gasped as he squeezed his way through the uncompromising entrance. "Hey, Baron? How large does this tunnel get?"

"It widens out, Muta, don't worry."

"I wasn't worrying. I was just wondering how long I'd have to hold my breath for."

"Five years and you still haven't taken a diet?" Toto cackled unkindly, even if the tunnel wasn't comfortably large enough for him right now either.

"Shut up!"

"Please, we neither have the patience or the space for a fight right now." Baron's voice rang calmly from the front, echoing slightly off the stone walls. "So detest until we are out of here, at the very least."

Putting a little extra distance between herself and the two glaring individuals, Haru caught up with Baron. She wasn't entirely sure she'd survive if a fight broke out; with the two prone to throwing their weight around during a brawl, she'd risk being smashed in such a confined space. Walking alongside Baron for the first time that day, she noticed something new.

"You've got your cane."

The Baron smiled, bringing his cane up to tap his top hat in way of acknowledgement. "What do you think?"

"It's cool. But wasn't it...?"

"Broken? Yes. I took the interval yesterday to carve a new one while on the island. A cane, I've discovered over the years, has many more uses than one would expect."

Haru laughed, for just a moment seeing a little of Shizuku's Baron in this war-weary individual. "Well, I do have it to thank for not getting crushed last Friday." She paused. "Was that only a week ago?"

"Does it feel longer than that?"

"It feels... a whole world away."

Baron's smile saddened. "I only wish I could return you to your own world. You did not deserve to be dragged into this."

"Neither did you," Haru said fiercely.

"Maybe not, but the damage is done. This world – these years – has changed me and I doubt I would have any place in a world that has moved on without me. But you... you still have people waiting for you."

"So do you," Haru insisted. "Shizuku still thinks of you, and I know so does Seiji, and I expect my mother still does. And your family." Haru realised she had never asked about his family. "Yes, your family. What about your mother, father? Siblings?"

"Single child, doting parents," Baron answered.

"Yes, so they'll be waiting..."

"It's too late for that. My mother became sick soon after my disappearance, and my father's smoking habit finally caught up with him. I have no family to go back to."

"Oh... I'm sorry."

"You are always sorry for what you cannot control," he noted idly.

"I'm sorry for treading on sensitive ground," Haru murmured. "I shouldn't have been so nosy."

"Your curiosity was only natural."

"Well, you know what they say about curiosity and the cat."

"And they say satisfaction brought it back."

Haru paused. "Are you satisfied then?"

Baron seemed mildly taken aback by the question. He didn't stop, but there was a momentary pause in his step. "I... never thought about it. No, I don't think so. I suppose I won't be satisfied until this war is over." He tilted his head, indulging in thought. "Satisfaction is a strange thing, is it not? It isn't happiness exactly, but the feeling that something has been achieved. You can be satisfied without being truly happy..."

"I guess it depends on what you're looking for."

He turned to Haru. "Then what are you looking for?"

Haru shrugged. "To tell the truth? I'm still hoping for a way back to my life. But in a strange way I'm kind of satisfied right now; it reassures me that we're doing something rather than hiding away in the underground tunnels."

"We're in tunnels now."

Haru sensed a weak attempt at a joke. She smiled faintly. "I feel better knowing we're striving towards something. And... I guess I'm still living in hope. Whatever's recently happened to this world, I want to believe it's for the better and that perhaps this world can be healed."

"Then you are indeed living in hope."

A gust of wind rattled down the tunnel, surprisingly cold after the bright sunshine they'd been blessed with outside. Haru instinctively tried to tense against it, registering the temperature dropped, while also registering an unearthly wail carried along the cutting breeze. She noticed Baron tense up, although she was sure it was not because of the cold.

There was a dull thump. It appeared Muta had finally squeezed his way through the worst part of the thin passageway and had fallen upon discovering he was no longer tightly supported by the tunnel walls. "Holy mackerel!" he yowled. "What was that?"

"I heard it too..." Toto said. Haru was a little surprised that he wasn't taking the opportunity to mock Muta for hearing something. Then again, there definitely had been something tangible in the wind.

"Didn't it come from within the caves?" Hiromi noted. "What does that mean?"

"It means we're being played with," Baron muttered. Haru didn't think he had intended for her to catch his words, but catch them she did.

She didn't feel any better.

If she could shiver, she would have done. As things went, she merely edged an inch closer to their leader and tried not to think about the surely innumerable nasty possibilities these caves could hold. Baron brought out a small lantern, briefly touched the inside, and a warm, gentle light banished the worst of the shadows away. Haru's curiosity overtook her as she watched the glowing lantern.

"What gives the light?" she quietly asked. With the cave's penchant for carrying words and echoing them off the walls, it felt somehow appropriate to whisper. When Baron turned to her, she added, "It didn't look like fire."

"No, it's not fire. That would be finite and much too dangerous around toys. It's a light stone."

"A light stone?"

"When toys first come alive, it takes a spark of imagination or belief to ignite life – this is a form of magic in its own right," Baron softly explained. It appeared he also felt the need for whispered answers, although perhaps for a more paranoid reason than Haru's. "Light stones are mined minerals that react with this spark of magic to give light."

"That's kind of cool."

She heard, rather than saw, the smile. "It is... kind of cool."

She hadn't quite finished though. This explanation made sense, but left a few holes open. "If..." she started slowly, "it takes magic from when toys first came alive, then what about us? We weren't created the traditional way."

"The stones react to the magic that left us like this."

"Oh." Haru grimaced. "So the King's magic is fuelling it? We're made with the King's magic? Gross."

Baron chuckled quietly. "I try not to think about it."

Haru was still spluttering quiet disgust for a while yet, which gradually died away until the hollow silence of the cave swallowed them up again. She edged yet closer to Baron, her paranoia insistent that something was watching them, and Baron must have felt something similar, for he didn't move away. In fact, one arm moved protectively around her shoulders. She couldn't deny she was grateful for the contact. In the shadow-lined tunnels, it was all too easy to feel alone.

A flicker of light glimmered along one of the other corridors. Haru stopped at the crossroads.

"What is it?"

She glanced from one corridor to another, trying to establish whether it had merely been a figment of her tired imagination. "I thought... I saw something. Baron, how extensive are these tunnels?"

"This is the main tunnel, but the others lead off into a labyrinth of passageways."

There! This time there had definitely been light.

"There's someone down there," she said. "They might be lost."

"They might be unfriendly," Baron reminded.

Haru shrugged off his hand. "If they're lost, they might need help."

"Haru–"

"I'll just see what they want!" she shouted. She started sprinting along the corridor before anyone could stop her. Now the light was constant, a pinprick of a glow in the tunnel's consuming darkness. She heard the rest of the party quickly following after her sprinting form, but her eyes were on the light.

"Hey, are you lost? Do you need help?"

The light vanished, presumably round a corner. Indeed, Haru found herself skidding just in time to avoid a wall. She turned the corner, forgetting to take note of her shouting companions, and continued her running. Gradually she was drawn deeper into the tunnels, which were gently sloping downwards by this point.

And then... after goodness knows how long of chasing the elusive light... the tunnels began to lose a little of their intimidating darkness. Haru hardly noticed it at first, but the darkness was no longer its previously absolute shade; no longer did it press against her eyes and disorientate her in the featureless tunnel, and eventually it began to recede.

Baron caught up with her just as she slowed.

"Haru–"

"There's light..."

"_Haru_–"

"Baron, look." She pointed ahead, to where there was a definite lift in darkness. "It's lighter here."

He looked down the corridor she was pointing and muttered something under his breath. To Haru's shock, it sounded very close to a blunt vulgarity. He snapped a hand round her wrist. "We're heading back _now_. I don't like this."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Oi, Baron, what's the hurry?" Muta called. He, along with the rest of the group, arrived just as Baron was turning back along the path. "Oh, fishcakes... Don't run off again!"

"He's right. What's the hurry?" Haru demanded as she was dragged back along the path.

"I hope you never know."

There was a rumbling ahead, and both lead toys pulled short. Just in time, it would appear, for the roof caved in not half a yard before them.

"That was... close..."

"That was planned."

Haru didn't like that. "That's stupid. Who would plan that?"

"Whoever planned those lights." He turned on the spot and moved back along the tunnel. "No choice now; we must take the only route left. We go towards the light."

Haru almost made a joke regarding not going towards the light and then thought better of it. She got the rather distinct impression he wouldn't appreciate humour at a time like this. She picked up her pace to keep up with the wooden figurine. "Do you know how to get out of here?" she asked. "You said so yourself, it's a maze down here."

"I think that will be the least of our problems."

"Could you keep your pessimistic comments to yourself?" Haru muttered. "You're not doing anything for my confidence." She had to pick up her pace again to keep up as Baron hurried towards the front of the group. "Baron... Is there really something down here? Is there really a shattered toy?"

He turned to her so sharply she almost lost her footing.

"Who told you about the toy?"

"I... I, um... bullied Toto into telling me..." She hesitated. "He made it sound like most toys didn't believe the stories. But... you do, don't you?"

"I don't have much choice in the matter."

They rounded a corner, and at that point the discussion was driven to an end by the abrupt change in scenery. The tunnel opened up into a small cavern, lit up with hovering, glimmering seeds of flame. They danced on the spot, like flames taken straight from an open fire, ever shifting and flickering. This was why the darkness had been steadily lifting.

And the hovering flames revealed something scattered across the far wall.

The wall at the far end was uneven, cracked and worn away at points to give jagged surfaces. Whatever was there was also dispersed across the far floor too, pieces catching the strange light and revealing them to cover an extensive part of the cavern. Over one of the flatter pieces of the wall, there was a greater concentration of the pieces, surrounded by more of the ghostly flames and it was these pieces that Haru first recognised as wood.

Chipped, fractured pieces of wood, but pieces of wood all the same. As she stared, she noticed there was some indentation to the wood, some carving of sorts. Spread across the scattered pieces was the outline of a face. Grossly deformed and unaligned in its current broken form, but the longer Haru looked, the more sure she was of her conclusion. She stepped closer.

Baron tightened his grip around her wrist.

"Don't."

The eye opened.

Haru stumbled back, but Baron kept her by his side. She had managed to make out the outline of the face – picking out where the eyes would be, the mouth, the nose – but she hadn't been expecting this. Neither did a few others of the group, by the sound of things.

"HOLY FISHCAKES IN THE SKY! IT'S ALIVE!"

The eye flickered to Muta, whose outburst had been as unmistakable as his girth, and then across the rest of the group. It lingered too long over the front two toys, Haru felt as she watched the eye regard her stonily. The eye was only a shattered chip of wood, barely large enough to hold the eye, and where the other eye was, was only wood so shattered that no carving could be made out.

The mouth was made of several pieces, all which grotesquely curved upwards into a fragmented, misshapen smile. Not all the pieces moved though, giving it a lopsided, twisted grimace. It opened and a breathy, wailing sigh slipped out.

"It's been... too long since I last had visitors. Good day... Baron."

Haru looked to the feline figurine. "He knows you?" she whispered.

Baron only retained his stony facade. "Good day, Pine. How have the years been for you?"

"Unkind," the thing answered. "But less kind still, it would appear, to you. How is the Queen?"

"You know how she is," Baron snapped.

The thing only executed a breathy laugh. It grated slightly against Haru's ears. "So I do, so I do. And now you've lost the Cat Queen too. You never did have much luck with queens." The eye flickered to Haru, who shied instinctively away from the look. "It would appear you've found a new queen though." The same laugh grated across the room. "Careful you don't lose her too, Baron."

Baron's grip on her wrist tightened, now beginning to become painful.

"You don't scare me, Pine."

"Really? Then why are you so eager to leave? Why are you so protective of your little porcelain queen? Why won't you stay and chat?"

"We're leaving."

"So soon? And after all I did to catch your attention?" The eye looked back to Haru, who was watching the hovering flames. "Do you like my will-o-wasps? They are pretty, aren't they? They're one of my better spells."

Baron ignored it and started across the room, where there was another opening to a passageway. There was a wooden crackling cackle.

"Oh, but wait a while, Baron! I haven't even told you of what the future holds in store for you!"

Baron didn't slow.

"Oh, you'll want to hear this, Baron! I promise you! I've seen what's going to happen, I've seen your porcelain queen, I've seen the fire! She's going to break, Baron! She's going to break and you're going to burn!"

The laughter followed them down the corridor.

"You're going to burn!"


	15. Saturday 15th December

"_Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most." ~ Ruth Carter Stapleton_

x

Saturday 15th December 2012: Those Who Need It Most

Sleep wouldn't come easily that night.

Then again, Haru wasn't even sure if she wanted to sleep.

The detour they had been forced to take after meeting the shattered toy had left them arriving at the end of the caves after nightfall; the consequence of this had been they had decided to sleep in the tunnels rather than exposed outside.

Or, at least, everyone else was sleeping.

Haru stood in her fixed position, feigning sleep with her back to the rest of the group. She hadn't wanted to talk or even think over yesterday's events – for surely they had passed the midnight mark several hours ago and it was now Saturday – and the toy's cackling, wailing laugh echoed throughout her head.

She knew if she slept she would see Pine again.

A slight scuffle of movement caught her ears; she turned her head to see Baron leaving their branch of the tunnel and moving towards the main passageway. Sparing one last glance to the remainder of the toys and cats, she quietly followed the feline figurine out.

He had stopped at the cave exit, standing silently as he watched the nocturnal world before him. The moon was only a sliver, but a few tentative stars sparkled in the otherwise inky-black sky. It was just enough light to see him by.

"Can't sleep?"

He turned quickly. Haru guessed she should have introduced her presence more subtly; they were all on edge today. Just as curtly he looked back to the world, but he now looked tired. "No. You?"

Haru quietly stepped beside him. "Not a chance. I know if I sleep I'll go back to that... that thing..."

"I'm sorry you had to see it today."

"I'm sorry for being so gullible. If I hadn't followed those lights–"

"You thought someone might be lost. You were only doing what you thought was right."

"I should have listened to you."

"We have all made mistakes, Haru," Baron said softly. "And I cannot blame you for following your heart, although sometimes a matter of the mind is necessary."

"Sometimes listening to your head is overrated," Haru murmured. "I know what I did yesterday was stupid, but I still think some matters should be more heart than head."

"The heart is irrational."

"The heart is what makes us human."

Baron chuckled humourlessly. "We are no longer human."

"We should not lose our humanity." Haru paused, and as she did so her mind ran back over the events of yesterday. She felt sick, even though she had no physical way to hurl in her porcelain state, but still couldn't escape her memories. "Baron, can I ask you something?"

He looked to her, perhaps hearing the strange note of hesitant sincerity. "You may, but I make no promises to answer it."

"Pine... He knew you..."

"And you want to know how?"

"Please."

He sighed and looked away, but didn't excuse himself from the question. "You may as well know. Many years ago, when Louise was still around and I had made the decision to help her cause, we decided to investigate the rumour of a toy so shattered it could see past the barrier of time. We thought that if we knew what was in store, we could avoid it or know what to do."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

Baron stared up at the inky sky. A few brave stars shone above. "The thing about the future, Haru, is that in seeing it you set it in stone. That, whatever future you are told, it's the future where you've already been told and so there is no way to escape that circular paradox. We didn't realise this at the time. We thought the future wasn't fixed – and I think it is, as long as you don't learn of it – and so we searched for this fabled toy."

"You found him," Haru said.

He nodded. "He spoke of Louise's demise, he said that she would burn and that this world would fall into despair... He was right. We thought that Louise would suffer in battle, so when the Cat King invaded the palace, I made Louise stay out of the fight. It was a mistake. With Louise battling, we would have had a chance of winning; instead we merely made it easier for the Cat King. He beat back our forces and threatened to burn or break every toy unless Louise surrendered herself."

"She surrendered, didn't she?"

Baron nodded mutely. Haru expected to see tears, and then she remembered that was an impossibility. To be unable to cry for the one you love... That was something that must have only furthered his despair. To have known the release of tears and yet be unable to express it... When he next spoke, his voice was thick. "Before she surrendered, she turned to me and told me, 'This was meant to be.' As if that made everything better. And if we hadn't been to Pine, we would have done things differently..." He dropped his gaze to the green grass swaying gently outside their cave. "If we hadn't been to Pine, she wouldn't have surrendered so easily..."

He sounded so beaten, so tired, so guilt-ridden, that Haru did the only thing that felt right. She hugged him.

"You have no way of knowing that," she insisted fiercely. "Louise did what she felt was for the best, she did what she thought was right, to save the toys she had promised to protect as her role as queen, and in the end it was her choice. That's what you need to remember, Baron; in the end it was her choice. I... I think she'd want you to respect that."

"Thank you, Haru. But I think you trust my judgement too readily. We made a mistake–"

"Exactly," Haru said. "You _both_ made a mistake. And, Baron? It's not a matter of trusting your judgement; I trust you."

Baron chuckled in the same humourless tone, but now he leant into the embrace. "Even though I am the reason for your current predicament?"

"_Especially_ after that," Haru responded strongly. "You didn't abandon me; you brought me out of harm's way and have looked after me even though you have a host of other responsibilities to be seeing to and sometimes I can see the Humbert Shizuku knew. She trusted you. As did Louise, I'll bet. As do Corin and Toto and Hiromi and everyone else. So I think I'll take a leaf out of their books."

Another chuckle, but this sounded closer to the normal Baron. "Then you are as foolish as the rest of them."

"Maybe. But the only person who doesn't trust in you is yourself. That should say something."

"I know the mistakes I've made–"

"And you have learnt from them."

"Really? Then why did I allow a young woman to be pulled into this war, through exactly the same means that I was?" he demanded. "If that's not history repeating itself, what is?"

Haru laughed, but it sounded a little sad. "I've forgiven you for that. Why must you keep bringing it back up again? And, if we're to be exact, I repeated _your_ mistake, not you. To be honest, you were a little preoccupied at the time." Her eyes trailed up to the severed ear. It still looked as jagged and raw as the day it had been cut. She raised a hand and trailed fingers along the edge. There was a strange tingling sensation along the tips of her fingers, something akin to momentary pins-and-needles; the wooden wound was still strange to comprehend. "Does it still hurt?"

"It hasn't hurt in days."

She smiled sadly. "You're brave, Baron."

"I was weak for letting it distract me. If I had intervened in time–"

Haru dropped her hand away. "_If_? If! _If_, Baron, you spend your whole life going _if_ then you'll spend your whole life in regret!" she snapped. "You're not invincible and you're not immune to pain, not physical or emotional, so stop trying to surpass that. I'm sure if Louise was around, she'd tell you to buck up your ideas and start living again to whatever capacity that is!" She wanted to feel the prickling around her eyes, to know that she could cry for something as personally important as this, but her eyes remained dry. Her voice could only thicken to convey her conviction. "Whoever or whatever this war has made you into, I can't believe that's all there is to you. I can't. I won't. I..."

She choked on her words as they faded into whispers. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, but still felt no tears. She kept forgetting she was nothing more than porcelain. With this reminder, a little of her fire dwindled further.

"He wasn't right," she said softly. "Pine, I mean. About this world falling into despair." She turned to leave, but paused long enough to give her last few words. "As long as some toys still dream of a better world, there is hope for this kingdom. You heard his words and so you gave in to despair. He didn't make you follow that prophecy; you chose to. You have a choice. You always have a choice."

ooOoo

With the mountains now behind them, all that lay between them and the King's camp was the desert. It wasn't quite the desert Haru had been expecting; then again, since the sun hadn't shone in five years, so perhaps she shouldn't have been quite so surprised.

There were no rolling sand dunes, no clouds of heat-focused haze sizzling from the ground. Instead there was only cracked earth. Cracked earth and the cutting wind.

"What happened here?" she whispered.

"The rain stopped coming," Baron explained. "The forest that was once here dried up and died; the wood rotted away and left the bare earth. The ground dried and all the nutrients were swept away by the wind. Now there is nothing left in the earth here; nothing can grow. Nothing will ever grow."

Haru had stopped. Baron paused, turning to the little ballerina. She had her feet together, arms about her body and was staring at the fractured earth below. "I'm sick of this," she said quietly. "I'm sick of this world falling apart. I'm sick of this war. I'm sick of the scars it's left. I want to go home." She sank to her knees. "I want to go home. I want to celebrate Christmas. I want to put the Christmas tree up and buy presents and do all the normal things for Christmas."

There was a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Haru..."

"I want to see Mum and Shizuku and Seiji and I want to apologise for what I said... Damn, the last thing I ever said to Mum was really mean. I really hurt her and now the last thing I'll ever have said..."

Suddenly two arms were encompassing her. "Haru, it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself."

"But..."

"Weren't you the one who spoke about despair?" he reminded gently. "About our choice to give in or fight, remember?"

Haru leant into him, shaking slightly as if she were trying to force tears that would never come. "I'm sorry, Baron," she whispered. "I've just been dealing with your despair for too long; I had bottled my own up but now I'm too tired to fight it."

There was no blame in those words, but guilt immediately sprung up in Baron. If he had been more independent in dealing with his own despair then Haru wouldn't have needed to support him. Then she wouldn't have been so burnt out and she could have dealt with her own depression. He tenderly helped her back to her feet.

"Come on, Haru. Let's go."

She resisted for a moment and then leant into his embrace. "Sorry..."

"You have no reason to be sorry. I'm the one who should be sorry; I shouldn't have loaded all my care onto you."

"I'm fine, really I'm fine," she insisted.

"You're exhausted. As any toy would be without sleep."

"I can't sleep," she murmured. "We have to keep going."

"Who said anything about stopping?" He swept her up into his arms, to Haru's tired, half-hearted protests. "I'm stronger and more accustomed to this life than you are," he stiffly informed her. "I can go for longer without sleep, but you... you, Haru, are near collapsing."

"If I sleep, I'll revert back to my sleeping state," she murmured.

"Then don't sleep. Merely rest."

She protested a little longer but, in truth, she was too tired to resist. Her mind eagerly snatched at the opportunity to rest. "How long will it take us to cross this desert?" she mumbled.

"Day and a half. We should be coming to the forest by midday tomorrow."

"I'll..." Haru drifted off for a moment, snapping back with a wave of disorientation. "I'll be better tomorrow," she murmured. "I promise."


	16. Sunday 16th December

"_Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love." ~ Lucinda Franks_

x

Sunday 16th December 2012: The Ancient Dream

Sunday was not a day of rest. Sunday was a day of dulled, constant travelling. It may have been more bearable had their surroundings showed any signs of changing, but the desert remained its same, monotonous self through the entirety of the day. Which began to frustrate Haru after the first few hours, if she was to be totally honest.

And depress her. That too.

It was just so lifeless. Despairingly dead and unnaturally quiet. If she had hackles (heck, if she even had but a few hairs on the back of her neck) she knew they would have risen at the eerily silent surroundings. She began to wish she did have hackles. It might make her feel better.

But she did not have hackles and it was still much too quiet and Haru was beginning to have enough. They had travelled through the night, despite Muta's loud complaints, due to the barrenness and exposure of the land that left them with very little cover and _still_ the landscape was never-changing. When they finally came to a slope in the otherwise tedious setting, Baron motioned for them to detour down the valley to where there was a change in the ground.

Between the cracks, someone had built a round structure. It was sticking up half a metre out of the ground and was made from dusty, sand-coloured bricks, with a stone top covering it. Once they were stood by it, Baron motioned for them to take a break.

Muta collapsed onto the ground. "Thank the kingdoms for that!"

"In need of a diet, puddingbrain?"

"I'm in need of a chicken pie! Say that again to my face, birdbrain!"

Corin ignored the bickering duo and approached Baron. "What are we stopping here for?"

"Water break." Baron began to push at the stone covering. "Help me shift this, will you?"

"Sure."

As the covering was eventually moved off the top, Haru ventured over to investigate. She had offered her services earlier with shifting it, but the two males had insisted they were fine. Deciding that if they were going to make their bed that way, they could jolly well lie in it, she has resisted from offering again. Plus the stone slab looked like her delicate porcelain hands wouldn't make much difference either.

She peered into the interior of the structure. "What is it?"

"A well."

"Here? In the middle of the desert?"

"There is groundwater flowing underneath us," the Baron explained, "or, at least, there was when this well was built. There's no guarantee that it won't have dried up since then. However, with two flesh individuals in our party, it would have been foolhardy not to take the chance to replenish our water stocks."

"Food! Do we have food?"

"Really, must you be so food-motivated?"

"Hey! I have a stomach that needs feeding. Unlike your stony hide!"

"Please, keep the fighting down to a minimal." A quick look from Baron was enough to quieten down the two into insults of a more hissed, muttered variety. "Muta, I believe we still have some dried meat left. Please remember that we won't be able to stock up on food until we're out of the desert though. What we have is all we have."

"Huh, it's not like the rest of you have to eat," Muta mumbled. He had already located the aforementioned meat. "Just Cor and I are the ones with any real appetite here."

"Of course, Muta."

Haru watched Baron deal out the water skins, collecting the bucket resting in the interior of the well and setting it down into the shadowy opening. "When are we going to take a rest?"

"Are you tired again?"

"No, I'm not." Haru looked back to the rest of the group. Muta was delving into the food stocks and, despite any attempt at a regal air, Corin had collapsed down beside him and was starting to tear into the food also. The four toys – the archer, fairy, horse and crow – had stopped where Baron had initially signalled them to take a break and Haru could see exhaustion written out in their faces. While physical exhaustion wasn't possible, the mental strain from the journey was taking its toll. "But everyone else is." She looked back to the feline figurine. "And so are you. We should take a rest."

"Here?"

"Why not? Why are you pushing everyone so hard – is there a time limit or something that I'm not aware of? Some reason why we need to make it to the Cat Kingdom sooner rather than later?"

"The longer we tarry, the more damage this war does to this world."

"This war has been going on for over two decades. Why the hurry now?"

It was Baron's turn to glance back to their companions. "The moment we committed to this scheme, we made ourselves vulnerable. We are so exposed in this barren world and... I don't want to risk losing anyone else. Corin still blames himself for the loss of his guards," he added quietly.

"If you keep pushing us, people are going to start making mistakes," Haru insisted. "And mistakes can cost just as much as any delay. Please, call a rest. Not just for everyone else or for the good of this mission, but for yourself." She took the rope from Baron's hands and brought the water-full bucket up herself. "You cannot keep up with this regime and I know you think you have to be strong all the time, but it's not possible."

Baron mumbled something.

"What?"

"If I had been stronger when we first met, you wouldn't be here," he repeated.

"And if I wasn't here, you would have been torn apart by that toy wolf so, for that at least, my presence here hasn't all been in vain." She prodded his arm. "Everyone needs rest. Even the great Baron Humbert von Gikkingen."

"Someone will need to keep guard–"

"I will. After all, I rested yesterday, remember? Which is a lot more recently than any of you."

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"No."

Baron sighed and, smiling slightly, nodded his surrender. "Alright." He announced the newly-devised plans to the rest of the party. There was a subtle – but certainly noticeable – sigh of relief from them, including a full-out cheer from Muta. Haru indulged in a small "I told you so" smirk.

"Are you sure you're happy to keep guard?"

Haru rolled her eyes. The rest of the party had settled down by now and by this point only she and Baron remained. This had been the third time he'd asked this question.

"Sure as eggs are eggs." She sighed. "Please, Baron; just sleep."

"You are sure you don't need help?"

"I'm not half as delicate as I look nor as you make me out to be."

"Fine words coming from one made of porcelain."

"I'm tougher than you think."

Baron's gaze flickered out across the dry landscape; in the evening sun the cracks were thrown into shadow and spread out across the earth like a disease. His face shifted to an expression that Haru couldn't decide if it was deep sadness or uneasiness.

"Baron? What was this place like? You know," she added, "before the war."

"It was a jungle. A beautiful, wonderful, untamed jungle. Rather like a rainforest, but without the tropical diseases. I was able to see it once before the war took its heavy toll on this place but, even then, it was beginning to suffer. Even so, it was... so beautiful."

"You miss it."

"I miss everything that this war has destroyed."

"Perhaps one day it will return."

"Haru, the ground is dry and cracked; there is no nutrients left in the earth to support life."

"Why must you always treat everything as impossible?"

"Because–"

"You said that the sun never shines properly and yet, here we are, in the sunshine. You said we can't heal anymore and yet, look!" She held up her palm. "Not a single crack! You said the ice never melts and yet it has. I think, Baron, that you need to start re-evaluating your definition of _impossible_."

Baron had become distracted at her second point. He took her raised hand. "Haru? What do you mean about the crack? Did you break?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I knew you would freak out," Haru answered sharply. She gestured to him with her free hand. "Like you are now."

"I'm not... I'm not _freaking out_."

"Really? You could have fooled me." She tugged her wrist free from his grip. "Listen, Baron, I cracked my hand when we were fighting that wolf toy over a week back. And look at my hand now – there's not a single trace of that crack left, despite all your warnings."

"That isn't... It isn't possible..."

"I beg to differ." She sighed. "Please Baron; you need to sleep." She made a face that would hopefully look reasonably resolute and no-nonsense on the matter. "Now."

He surrendered with a small, still uneasy smile. "As you wish." He turned, already moving into his sleeping state, but paused before he slipped into slumber. "And, Haru?"

"Yes?"

The smile softened. "If something happens, tell me next time." And then he turned away, the smile becoming fixed and wooden while his eyes glazed over in the thrall of sleep. She wondered where his dreams took him or if he'd even be dreaming tonight. He was so exhausted that she wouldn't be surprised if he forwent the dreaming today.

She took advantage of the peace – and with Toto and Muta in such close proximity, this was a rarity in itself – to enjoy the newfound silence. With the recent bout of travelling, she had been granted little time to herself and no illusions of privacy; to have it suddenly thrust upon her left her a little nonplussed.

Nonetheless, she had plenty of time to herself now. She wondered over to the sleeping Baron, standing on tip-toe so she could see straight into his unseeing eyes. Eyes that were usually so full of emotion – and Baron was always so absolute and sure of his emotions – that were now dulled with lack of life. She wondered whether her own eyes lost all life when she slept or whether there was anything to mark that a soul resided within the porcelain body. She tilted her head to get a better look, trying to see the human that Baron had once been.

For she had known how the Snowdrop Dancer had looked – she had owned her long enough – and she knew that there were significant differences between what the Snowdrop Dancer had originally looked like and what its appearance was now. For when Haru's soul had been moved into the ballerina, it appeared a few other things had changed – the figurine's features had shifted to more closely resemble Haru's.

Which would have to imply that the figurine of Baron had changed to resemble Baron's – Humbert's – true appearance. She tried to imagine what Humbert must have looked like back in his human days. She concluded as far as tawny hair and emerald eyes before she decided that there wasn't much else she could assume without seeing the real Humbert. Baron. Whichever name he preferred to be called.

She doubted he was still the same Humbert Shizuku had known and loved. But she also knew he was a far cry from the persona Shizuku had bestowed upon the original doll. He was a straddled mix of the two and, in being so, was neither.

She glanced around her, reassuring herself that all was quiet, and stepped away from him. Her eyes now rested on their surroundings – the jungle that had fallen to this world's despair – and became sad again. There were so many parts of this world that sounded so amazing and yet, if nothing was soon changed, that would all be lost.

Like the jungle.

A new tiredness – something not physical (not that it could be) or mental – stole over her, tempting her into the realm of slumber. The sorrow that had just filled her being slipped away with a comforting kind of sleepy calmness. Before she could fully comprehend her actions, she was slipping into her sleeping form.

She hadn't dreamt at all recently; she had almost forgotten the intensity of the senses in this state, but quickly remembered upon re-experiencing them.

The room was cold – not freezing, but cold enough to make Haru uncomfortable after the numb nothingness of the toy's senses – and dark. Moonlight filtered hesitantly through a half-drawn curtain, lending a certain haunting light to the scene set out before her. It was a room set in the Human World; this she could tell by the giant proportions of the layout and the desk she stood on that stretched out as large as a tennis court – but it was the other figure that caught her attention.

The figure was the only thing that was her size – the only reassuring remnant from her recent stay in the toy world – and eerily familiar. She approached, noting how her feet never made a sound on the wooden surface.

"Baron?"

He didn't jump, but his head twitched irritably as if fighting the impulse. A moment passed. "Haru?" He turned around. "What are you doing here? How...?" He shook his head. "I suppose you're not going to be too surprised when I tell you that toys have never been able to walk into another toy's dream before, are you?"

"What can I say? I like the impossible." She walked over to his side. "But what exactly do you mean by that? I know we're both dreaming–" she gestured to the room dwarfing them "–for there is no other way to explain this, but surely toys can meet each other in dreams? What if toys dream that they're in the same place?"

"If toys do, they do not see one another. It's as if each toy dreams on a slightly different layer; the layers never overlap and so meeting another dreamer is unheard of."

"We must be on the same level then," Haru answered easily. She shrugged it away. "After all, when was the last time there was another human trapped in a human body?"

"Until you arrived, I was the only one."

"There you go then. There's your answer. Or as good an answer we're probably going to be able to find," Haru admitted. "You and I are more similar than you'd first guess upon looking." She finally turned her attention to the scene before her. She jumped, but managed to withhold her screech. "Who's that?" There was nothing unusual about the sleeping person except that, while at toy height, anyone who happened to be human looked uncomfortably large and somewhat giant-like.

Baron turned his gaze to the slumbering human. "Oh, him?"

Remembering what Baron had once said about dreams pulling you towards what you hold dear, Haru didn't quite believe his nonchalant response. Calmer now the surprise had drained away, she spared a glance to her dreaming companion. "Baron? Do you know him?"

That selfsame soft, uneasy smile rose to his face. "As well as I know myself."

"Wait..." The human was a young man, probably in his early twenties, hair a light colour that was hard to place in the moonlight, but she suddenly had the undeniable feeling that she knew him. And that when his eyes opened, they'd be a rich, green colour. She snapped back to Baron. "That's you."

"_Was_ me," he corrected. He shrugged, but the action was uncomfortable. "The body is just an empty shell now, caught in the thrall of the enchantment and unable to die. The young man that it once was has been changed beyond recognition and so the real Humbert – the one people still hope and dream and pray for – is gone."

Haru sighed and hugged him. She ignored the tension running through him, barely caring if she was overstepping some personal boundary – right now he just needed reassurance and standing awkwardly to the side just wasn't going to cut it. "If it makes any difference, I can see the man you once were. I've told you that before – I see it in everyone you've ever touched – and I still see it now. That's as simple as I can put it and that's as simple as it is."

Baron tentatively returned the embrace. "Thank you, Haru. You have a gift for always finding the right words."

"I learnt from the best."

When was the last time she had hugged him? Was it only yesterday? But then she had been awake – and awake meant dulled senses – and now she was dreaming. And, for the first time in much too long, she felt like she was human again. The embrace, instead of the usual deadened contact she felt in her porcelain form, was so very solid. And she knew Baron could feel the difference too, for he tightened the embrace.

"Where are we?" she whispered. "What is this place?"

"It is the home of my parents."

"What...?" She gulped and mutely nodded to the soulless body.

"What is my body doing here?" Baron offered.

She nodded.

"My parents kept my body in the hospital for a long time but eventually they came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be waking and so removed the life support." He chuckled, but the sound came out pained. "However, it would seem that the magic that bound me to this wooden body still has some sway over my human one. My body didn't die even then and now, twenty years after losing its soul, it still remains in the same inanimate state of limbo as before, as physical young as the first day it feel into this coma. My parents relieved the hospital of my care and brought me here."

"And so here you have remained."

"Here I have remained," he agreed.

Haru stole another glance to the slumbering human. He was, she had to admit, rather handsome; she could understand how Shizuku could have fallen for this young man, had he also been as charming and gentlemanly as Shizuku told him to be. "How often do you come here?"

"I came here often at first, but over time... my visits have gradually become more and more infrequent. My mind didn't wish to be reminded of what it had lost."

"And... more recently?"

"More recently I have found myself being drawn back to what once was. To here." He sighed, looking distracted as he swept his gaze across the room. He turned to his dreaming companion. "How real does this place feel to you? How... _human_ do you feel right now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Right now, what do you feel?"

"Well, I can feel the table surface on my feet and there's a breeze–"

"What do they feel like?"

She spared him a questioning glance, but humoured his question. "The table feels coarse beneath my feet... It's worn away slightly, worn smooth, but still feels rough on my shoes. The air's cold, but not stale – there's an underlying smell of tea and mint in the air; it's hardly there, but still comforting. There's also a little breeze that has come through the window's gap and..." She shivered as the coldness encompassed her. She laughed. "And I'm shivering!" She hugged her arms around her slim waist, revelling in the shaking. "I'm actually shivering! How... how is this possible?"

Baron smiled gently. "In dreams, anything is possible."

"But this..."

"Your soul has wondered from your body; your dreams are only limited by your perception of life. For toys that have always been that – just toys – they have no understanding of the full sensation of being truly alive, and so their dreams are restricted by what they have known. You know and expect what being human is like; your dreams allow you a small peak back into that world."

She glanced to him. "What do you feel?"

He regarded the dimly-lit room. He inhaled slowly. "I had forgotten that this room used to smell of tea and mint," he quietly noted. He closed his eyes. "What I would give to be able to smell it just one last time."

Haru's gaze widened. "Can't... Can't you smell it?"

"Not any more. You see, Haru, dreams only reflect as much as you remember. And I have forgotten what it is like to be human. Dreams grant a faint reprieve from my toy existence – I can feel just that little bit clearer – but not as clearly as I'm sure humans do. But, then again..." He looked away. "Don't they say you cannot miss what you cannot remember?"

"But you remember that you once remembered," Haru said softly. "That's enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough to miss what has been lost." She sighed and stepped away, rolling her shoulders as if to loosen her nonexistent muscles. "The last week has been so weird; I feel that I should be so tense and yet I lack the capabilities to be. I don't know how you ever became accustomed to this."

"Time is a good teacher."

"Time isn't so good for the memories though." She sighed again, feeling more human that she had in a long time. A small snippet of a tune slipped out from between her lips, light-hearted and loose despite their situation. "Baron, when was the last time you danced?"

"What a peculiar question."

She noticed he bypassed her question entirely. "When, Baron?"

"It may have been... before Louise's death..." he quietly admitted.

"That long?"

"There has been no time for dancing."

"Well, we can make time now. After all, don't they say that time passes differently in dreams?" She stepped back and, this time, offered her hand. "Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, would you... care to dance?"

**ooOoo**

**A/N: I just want to shout out a big thank you to all my lovely reviewers. Yesterday was entirely spent on travelling down the breadth of the country after my university term finished and so was unduly stressful. But your reviews were something to make me smile once the day was over and I was safely home. **

**Also, this month has been crazy-busy, so this story has fallen terribly behind on its schedule. I have no idea whether I'll be able to finish this in the appointed time but, if I don't, I will still finish this story even if it's not on the appointed days. Whatever happens, this has been crazy-fun and I hope you have enjoyed the madness.**

**Cat.**


	17. Monday 17th December

_"__Christmas waves a magic wand over this world and, behold, everything is softer and more beautiful." ~ Norman Vincent Peale_

x

Monday 17th December 2012: Beautiful

Upon waking, it was clear they had slept through the night.

Waking was a strange affair for Haru. For a moment the intensity of her human senses lingered and the sensory input from her strange surroundings threatened to overwhelm her. She caught herself before she fell, laughing at her own confusion while the dream's contentment still remained vividly in her mind.

She hadn't danced since coming to this strange world, and she hadn't danced with a partner for even longer. Despite the limitations of her present being, it appeared she still could attain the same joy out of dance.

And Baron was a good dancer. She couldn't deny that.

She believed he had even enjoyed himself – at least, the fact that he had forgotten she should be guarding the camp instead of sleeping suggested so.

All of this meant that she fell out of sleep with laughter on her face. The dream and her human senses dominated her mind so absolutely that she didn't even realise the change in surroundings until she started to register the expressions of her companions.

For she had fallen asleep in a barren desert.

She woke in a juvenile jungle.

Juvenile was really the only word to give the foliage justice for, despite their surroundings being much greener than before, it was still in a significantly young period. Grass dotted the cracked ground in sporadic stages while adolescent plants wove their way between the crevices; their small, hesitant leaves were curled tentatively towards the bright winter sun. Towards a bright winter sun that was noticeably warmer than the sun from back home.

And, most importantly, the world felt _alive_.

Regardless of the possible perils, Haru laughed again and ran up the valley, where the vegetation stretched out in spotted fields of green. From her new vantage point, she could see that the change spread out across the previously dubbed 'desert', gradually fading out the further she looked but still marking a definite change in the terrain.

For a moment, she was granted a glimpse into the world's past beauty.

She laughed again and spun on the spot.

For Baron, waking was a slower, but no less revolutionary sight. For him, seeing the tentative greenery was a pure step back into the past; he was even forced to wonder whether his dreams had taken a new step and enabled him to fall back in time, but the increased dullness of his senses contradicted that. True, the desert had a long way to go before it could claim to have re-established any of its former glory, but it was a start.

It was a definite, undeniable start.

As his eyes finished lingering over the new foliage, it moved onto the slender porcelain doll dancing in the sunlight. He could see the joy etched into her face, laughter ringing from the top of the valley. And, with the sunlight streaming from behind her, she almost looked like she was glowing...

Baron's eyes narrowed. No, it wasn't the sunlight...

Somehow – inexplicably, undeniably – she _was_ glowing. Her pale porcelain skin was tinged slightly with an inner glow that radiated out to her all-so green surroundings. Toto hopped over to Baron's side.

"Do you realise what she is, now?"

"How long have you known?" Baron murmured back.

"I have had my suspicions for about a week. Ever since she stepped up to help Corin – ever since she brought back Corin's smile." Toto glanced to Baron. "Ever since she brought back your smile, too. Pine's words only solidified my suspicions."

"Pine?"

"He called her your queen." He turned back to the laughing Haru. "Can't you see Louise in her? I don't mean the Louise who surrendered – I mean the Louise who retained her childlike wonder of this world. The Toy Monarch must always keep that same wonder, belief and hope – after all, we are but toys. That wonder – that belief and hope – is what made us in the first place. It's the children who believed in us enough to spark that childlike magic. You know as well as I do that not all toys are granted life; we need that magic."

"Yes..."

"This war has gone on for too long – it wore Louise down until she lost that selfsame wonder. That's why the war took its toll long before she died. In losing that wonder, her magic lost its potency."

"That still doesn't explain why Haru is..."

Toto released a low, cackling laugh. "Are you really so blind? You know the answer. You made this happen."

"I did no such thing."

"Really? You asked Louise to leave a protection spell over Haru when she was just a child. That magic is still there. In fact, upon Louise losing her wonder, her magic began to find another outlet. To find another potential carrier which had retained the same wonder. And magic is predictable – it likes to stay with magic of its own type – so who do you think it was passed on to?"

Baron looked to Haru with a new gaze. "So we were harbouring hope right under our noses..."

"Indeed we were. Of course, with the magic out of this kingdom, this world did fall into disrepair, but with her change into a toy and arrival here, everything has changed." Toto's beak curved knowingly upwards. "Can't you feel it? My joints ache less, my wings have smoothed over again... How is your ear, Baron?"

He raised one gloved hand to his severed ear. The wood felt smooth; his fingers brushed over the surface with a light, disbelieving air. He paused, his fingers still lingering. His eyes flickered to Toto. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"You were too caught up in your own affairs to see what was before you – why should I tell you before you've realised what your own eyes were hiding from you? And isn't it better to learn it this way?" Toto looked back to the porcelain ballerina, a tender, knowing expression flitting past his aged face. "That moment of pure realisation can be truly beautiful if the truth is beautiful in itself. Who was I to take that from you?"

Baron didn't know what to say to that.

Toto merely hopped away, probably returning to start an argument with Muta, and added, "After all, she is beautiful."

"Yes. Yes she is."

He approached the grinning brunette, catching her from behind in a tight embrace. She laughed, surprised by the contact but still smiling back to her companion. "Well, this is sudden," she murmured. "What's brought this about?"

"Maybe I'm just happy."

"Happy?" Haru laughed. "Well, that makes a nice change." She smiled and looked back to their altered surroundings once again. "And this is beautiful, isn't it? Unless, of course," she quickly added, "you still think the changes are a bad thing?"

"No... No I'm pretty certain they're a good sign."

"Happy _and_ optimistic." She glanced back to the feline figurine again. "Should I start wondering what you've done with the real Baron?"

He hugged her tighter. "He saw the light."

He should tell her about her true identity. About her magic – Louise's magic – that was steadily healing the land – but the words didn't come. He knew that the moment she learnt of her ability, it would become a responsibility – a desire to stay and help. She would be in danger of forsaking her humanity entirely to change this world – something he had already done and it had cost him – and yet, despite everything, there was always the chance that they would find a way to return to normal.

After all, if this broken world could heal, then all was not as hopeless as once thought.

"Baron?"

"Yes?"

"Are... Are you sure everything's okay?"

"Everything is fine. In fact, everything is better than okay."

She sighed. "I hope so."

"I promise you it is."

There was a cry from the bottom of the valley; Robin was motioning for the two figurines to join the rest of the party. Baron sighed and released Haru.

"It appears we must continue our journey. If this change has spread across the entire desert, it will attract even the king's guards' attentions. And attention means raised alertness; something that will certainly hinder our plan."

"How far is the king's camp?"

"We should reach it by tomorrow." Baron smiled gently back to the ballerina. "And then we have the interesting task of sneaking ourselves through the portal."

"Do we have a plan?"

"Not yet."

Haru only smiled. "Sounds normal."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Sorry for the brevity of this chapter; it may be a filler, but hopefully it confirms all your suspicions about Haru. Kudos to everyone who guessed correctly – I would go and name you, but there a lot of you and I don't want to miss anyone out and I'm on a super-tight schedule so just know that I'm very impressed and thanks again for all the reviews and support. Sorry also for the tardiness of this chapter; again, life has been super-busy and keeping up the routine is as demanding - perhaps more so - than ever.**

**Right, onto writing the next chapter! Merry Christmas and God bless.**

**Cat.**


	18. Tuesday 18th December

"_Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words." ~ Harlan Miller._

x

Tuesday 18th December 2012: Words

Planning, it would appear, was not something that the toys took lightly – or, at least, that they couldn't settle without a large debate of sorts. Robin and Paris had scouted ahead to check on the king's camp to discover that while several scouts had gone to investigate the desert's sudden change, most remained on site.

Which made the toys' task all the more difficult.

"Perhaps we should only send a few toys through," Corin suggested, pointing to the crudely drawn map sketched out in the sparse sand. "The fewer go, the less likely they'll be spotted."

"And what will the rest of us do, eh?" Muta grunted. "Wait for the guards to find us? Not on my watch we won't!"

"And we have little idea what we may encounter on the other side of the portal," Baron reminded the young prince. "It has been many years since you and Muta came from the Cat Kingdom. There is no guarantee that it will be what is expected. With this being the case, there will be safety in numbers."

"The fact still stands that getting everyone through that portal is a slim possibility," Robin remarked. "Corin was right in that regard; the fewer that go, the easier it'll be."

"I don't want to risk losing anyone on the other side," Baron returned.

"Then only send those who are capable!" Robin snapped. "There is no need to bring those who would only hinder us." As he said this, his eyes flickered to Haru. She didn't miss the meaningful glance. "Leave those who are too delicate for this task if you do not want to risk losing anyone. It is the only way."

"No way." Haru stepped forward, ensuring she was an unmistakable part of this conversation. "You are not leaving me behind."

"Hey, in all fairness, Chicky, you aren't made of the most durable stuff..."

"No, but I won't stand back and let everyone else fight for this world while I'm cowering at the side."

"This isn't your fight," Robin growled.

"Maybe not. But it is my friends who are risking themselves for this. That makes it my fight."

Robin appealed to the rest of the party. "Am I the only one who sees the folly of letting a porcelain doll accompany us on a dangerous and potentially fatal mission?"

To their credit, the rest thought this over for a moment.

"She has got this far..."

"And she has proven her worth countless times."

"She faced off against a feral toy," Baron contributed. "And she survived. I say she is given a chance."

"I agree." A knowing smile spread across Toto's beak. "She can come."

"As you said," Corin added, "there is strength in numbers. I third it."

Muta sighed. "What the fishcakes, I fourth it."

Hiromi and Paris glanced to the majority vote. "Agreed."

Robin scowled. "Alright. But just remember what Pine said – he did warn you."

Haru glanced to Baron; despite his assurances, she could see the remark had hit home. She took his hand. "Maybe. But just as much can be lost in inaction as in taking a stand. And this is my decision."

He smiled softly back. "I wouldn't have expected anything less." He looked to the remainder of the party. "Then that leaves us with one final dilemma – how to make our way to the portal."

Haru was looking to the wooden horse, her eyes narrowing in thought. "Hey, your name is Paris, right?"

The toy picked his head up, surprised by the sudden question so pointedly in his direction. "Right..."

"Is there a reason?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Is there a reason?"

"Well, yes..."

ooOoo

The king's guards hadn't had much interest in the last couple of years. Resistance had died down and, despite the occasional scuffle with the local residents – and some directed attacks by the disowned Cat Kingdom heir – life had been pretty much monotonic. The Cat King had almost lost interest in his stolen kingdom and, if he wasn't quite so stubborn on the fact that it was _his_ kingdom now, he might have already closed the portal and emptied out the camp.

But the king was that stubborn and so the guards remained, their boredom steadily rising as the days passed by.

Perhaps this was why such interest had been kicked up at the arrival of the wooden horse.

It was a large, wooden – inanimate, it would seem – equestrian with a simple design and a threadbare tail and mane. Large enough for a cat to ride on and this fact was thoroughly abused. Several hours were joyfully wasted with a string fashioned into a bridle attached and this being used to pull the horse – and whichever cat was currently atop – across the camp.

Despite any worries that a more wise – and less bored – cat might have had, the horse showed no sign of life, which was enough to convince the less-than-wise felines that this was a toy which hadn't been brought to life by a child's imagination.

Muta watched the foolish felines with an incredulous air.

"They can't really be that dumb, can they?"

"Curiosity killed the cat," Haru reminded him.

"An inanimate toy just appears to turn up and they take it in?" Muta curled his lip disbelievingly. "Seriously, how thick would you have to be?"

"Thick enough for us," Baron remarked. "Now, hush down; we must wait until the evening before the remainder of our plan is put into action."

Muta glanced to Haru. "You sure this is going to work, Chicky?"

Haru only smiled. "I hope so."

"I'm sure it will," Baron reassured.

Her smile widened. "Thank you."

ooOoo

Evening fell and the busyness of the camp lulled into peaceful tranquillity, broken only by the occasional guard patrolling the exterior. However, there was one corner of the camp that didn't quite fit in with the peaceful setting. At the edge of camp rested the wooden horse, guarded – or originally was guarded – by a couple of sleeping felines.

If anyone had been watching that wooden horse, they would have seen it move. They would have seen it stretch out its limbs, shaking itself awake again, and glance fugitively around the camp. They would have seen that, once this was done, it lowered its head and unlatched a bolt around its stomach, revealing a cavity within its hollow body.

They would have seen a plastic archer fall from that cavity.

But, as no one was watching, this little incident went unnoticed.

Robin landed on all fours, just missing a face palm into the ground. He rolled to the side, cautiously rising to his feet. "By all the kingdoms, there were a couple of close calls there," he whispered.

"I'll say," Paris neighed. "Too close for my liking."

Robin edged his way towards the two sleeping cat guards. Hand hovering over the sword to his side, he nudged them with his free hand. They snored and slumped to the side.

"They look like they're out for the count," Paris said.

Robin grunted his affirmation. "That's something good, I suppose. Now to clear the way for the rest."

Hidden away from the camp, the remainder of the party waited for the signal. Muta was growing impatient, Hiromi was looking surprisingly worried and even Toto had forgone his usual snide remarks. Haru found herself edging towards Baron and wasn't that surprised when Corin sat beside her. Again, she remembered Toto's remarks. She placed an arm around the young feline and found him to be shivering.

"Are you cold?"

Corin smiled weakly. "A little bit," he admitted. "I think it's the nerves too."

"That is nothing to be ashamed of," Baron assured.

"Really? I never see any of you scared."

Baron's smile turned grim. "Trust me, I've been scared."

"When?"

The figurine opened his mouth, but no words came out. Haru didn't need to read minds to know what incident he was thinking of. She turned to Corin. "Many times, I'm sure," she answered for Baron. She took the figurine's hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "But the point is that he overcomes that fear. He never lets it best him."

Baron slipped his hand free and walked away.

Corin looked quizzically to Haru. "Is something wrong?"

Haru merely sighed. "If it's what I think it is, then I'm disappointed. I thought we had overcome that particular bump in the road long ago." She smiled sympathetically to Corin, gave him one last hug, and rose to follow Baron. He hadn't walked far, just far enough for any murmured conversation to go unheard by the rest.

"Baron, what's wrong now? Is it what I said? I thought we talked about this–"

"How can I listen to you tell Corin how great I am when my own fear left you like this?"

"Baron, we've covered this..."

"I know, I know..." He ran one gloved hand through his fur. "And it's not just guilt or self pity, I promise you. You've taught me better than that. It's just... how can I be a model for Corin when I've failed so many times before?"

"Baron..."

"There's been Corin's guards... and you... and every toy I've failed to save... and Louise..."

She caught his hand. "Baron, there's one thing you should know – it doesn't matter how many times you fail or when you fall – what's more important is that you _get up_ every time. Fall down seven, get up eight. _That's_ what Corin is seeing and that's why he believes in you."

"But I don't get up every time."

"No, because you're not invincible, that's why," Haru answered. "But the funny thing about being someone's idol is that more often than not, it's not just what you do or don't do – it's what you stand for. And, in Corin's mind, you stand for everything a hero should be."

"But I'm not that hero," he hissed.

Haru smiled gently. "You have the potential to be," she whispered. "That's why Shizuku used so many of your characteristics for her character, that's why Corin looks up to you, that's why people follow you. Because you have what very few people are blessed with – potential. Potential to be so brilliant, so bright, so... inspiring. But you need to recognise that, because no one else can accept it for you."

"I think you've got me mistaken. I'm just a toy, Haru. An old, broken, forgotten toy."

Haru shook her head fiercely. "Don't you understand? You are so much more than that. You're not just a toy; you're a human within a toy exterior. You're only as broken as you allow yourself to be and you're not forgotten – not here, not in the Human World, nowhere. And why? Because you have that potential to inspire and that's one of the few things that can last a lifetime in people's hearts. You're not even old, Baron – yes, you've seen so much, but you've learnt to deal with it. You see Corin?" Her voice lowered so there was no chance they would be overheard. "He's old before his time, so don't you dare complain. Any kid, even a royal feline kid, shouldn't have to go through what he's gone through, and yet he's still standing. And if your strength inspires him to keep standing, then be proud of that."

Baron smiled gently. "You are wise beyond your years, Haru."

She laughed weakly. "A not-so-fictional character helped in that department. Childhood heroes can make a difference for life, it appears."

Whispered calls brought their attention back to the rest of the party. Hiromi was waving for them to join her. "Once you two have quite finished," she muttered, "you'll see that Robin and Paris have given the all-clear signal. We're good to go."

"Great." Haru followed after the toys, only slowing once to tug on Baron's sleeve. "I don't want to hear any more of that kind of talk, alright?" she whispered. "Please, just believe me when I say that people do look up to you and that you've earned it. So stop these dramatics long enough to make a difference."

Baron's smile remained. "I promise, Haru."

She broke out into a relieved grin, relaxing fully in that instant. "I believe you."

ooOoo

The portal in question was a larger version of the one Haru had taken a trip through in her first arrival into the Toy Kingdom. Except this one looked significantly more stable and wasn't crackling. Which, on the whole, reassured Haru. She sidestepped the unconscious guards (courtesy of some impressive combat skills from Robin and Paris earlier) and glanced up at the wide, round portal.

"So... what now?"

"Now we step through."

Corin wasn't looking so reassured though. "Wasn't that a little bit... too easy?"

"Hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, kid."

"No, I believe Corin may have a point," Baron said. "How many attempts have been made recently to storm this camp?"

"Enough," Hiromi said.

"And how many ended in failure?"

Hiromi grimaced. "Enough."

"So... where are all the guards? Surely there are more guards than this usually?"

The rest of the party nodded mutely.

"Perhaps they've been called back into the Cat Kingdom," Haru suggested.

"But why? What's changed?"

The porcelain ballerina glanced around. Her eyes settled back on Baron. "You've returned."

He looked up. There was something different in his gaze this time. A small, reassured, caring smile. "No," he amended. "_We've_ returned." He took her hand. "So the king better watch out, because there's nothing we can't overcome together." He winked. "So one last thing to say, I suppose."

"What's that?"

"Geronimo!"

They jumped.


	19. Wednesday 19th December

_I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. ~ Charles Dickens_

x

Wednesday 19th December 2012: Journeys

Haru still didn't quite understand the concept of portals; all she ever seemed to notice that time wasn't consistent. When she jumped through the portal it was night, turning on midnight, and when she stepped out into the next kingdom, it was bright day.

Bright, warm and sunny.

Not something she had seen much of since her adventures had started.

Upon jumping through the portal, the world spun in a flurry of blue ribbons, as a rippling and whirling vortex around them. It lasted only a second, but even as Haru stepped out she was left with imprints of the swirling world echoing behind her eyes. The Cat Kingdom tilted dangerously before her, only steadying out upon her knees giving way. She sank to the grassy ground.

"I hate portals."

Baron helped her slowly back to her feet. "Like them or not, they are undeniably helpful."

"I feel like the world is spinning."

"That's because it is."

Haru spared a glare his way. It would have looked more impressive if she had been able to focus on him properly. "You know what I mean."

"Unfortunately I do know exactly what you mean."

"What...?" She glanced around her surroundings; a catnip field rested further out in the very image of idyllic peace, which stretched out into further fields, eventually ending in a rolling hill. The sky was a summer blue – not the pale, cold blue of winter, but the warm colour of July. She motioned to the blueness above. "What time is it?"

"It would be hard to guess."

"What?"

"It's always noon in the Cat Kingdom, Chicky." Muta waddled over to the two figurines. "Summer noon, too."

"So it's still Tuesday?"

"Na." Muta breathed in deeply, sighing contently as he inhaled the Cat Kingdom air. "I reckon we accidently skipped a few hours going through that portal. It feels like morning."

Baron looked to Muta. "Do you know where we are?"

"If you're asking me whether I remember this place since I last came – and trust me, that's a while back – then I do. We're not far off the palace; we must be in the Catnip Circle, although it doesn't take a genius to work that one out..."

"Catnip... Circle...?" Haru queried.

"Eh, the region of the Kingdom where catnip grows best. Believe me, Chicky, we're there. Which means that the palace is only a stone's throw away – a day's walk, at most. Which is just as well, 'cause my feet are killing me!"

"It seems strange that the other end of the portal isn't guarded though," she noted. "I mean, after all the hassle we took to get here..."

"The King's stupid. Doesn't expect anyone to get past his guards and certainly doesn't expect anyone to be breaking through the portal from this side," the large feline grunted. "The palace will be that way." He motioned one thick paw to their right. "If I remember correctly, there aren't any villages between us and the palace, so it should be smooth sailing."

"That is, of course, relying on your memory," Toto remarked.

"Hey, what are you suggesting?"

"Not much. Although if that's all we've got to go on, we're doomed," he added behind a wing.

"Come and say that to my face, ya gargoyle pigeon!"

"Please, now is not the time." Baron stepped smoothly between the two warring individuals. "Muta, you're sure that is the right way?"

"I lived here all my life, of course I'm sure! And I know a lot more about this place than that overgrown chicken, I can tell you that much!"

"I believe you."

Muta huffed. "Good."

"We should start moving then, I take it?" Corin suggested calmly from the sidelines. "Unless, of course, anyone has any better ideas?" He smiled quietly when no further argument rose up. "Good. Let's go. If Muta's right, we still have a day's travel to get through."

As the party started into a settled pace, Haru slowed to walk alongside the young prince. Conversation settled into a background murmur, tiding away the hours of the day. Haru had known about Corin's blind eye and, although she had become accustomed to it over the last few days, it was still an uncomfortable reminder of how much had been lost – and how much could be lost. She made it a habit to walk on his left, where the seeing eye was located. She couldn't deny that walking on his right unnerved her slightly as his milk-white eye glazed away from her.

"I guess you haven't seen this place in a long time, huh?"

Corin's ruby-red moved away, skimming over the rolling catnip hills. "Nearly fifteen years. I was barely a year old at the time."

"So... you don't remember this world?"

"There are... flashes of memory," Corin replied slowly. "A room, a face, a picture... Nothing suitably solid to go on, though."

"I'm sorry."

Corin smiled a half-hearted smile. "Don't be. We all have our own woes... What is to say mine are any greater than anyone else's?"

"They make mine look pretty pathetic," Haru muttered.

"Haru, you have been exported to an unfamiliar, strange world, been changed into a toy–"

"Not that." She shook her head fiercely at the young feline's kind words. "Problems at home."

"Problems are not important because they're big," Corin gently said, "but important because they're yours."

"But everyone at home was happy," Haru snapped. "My mother was happier than I had seen her in a long time and Phillip – Phillip wasn't all bad; he tried to get along with me – but I refused to be happy. I refused to even try." Subconsciously she hurried her pace, as if mere distance could let her out-walk the guilt.

"Phillip?"

"My mother's... boyfriend, for lack of a better word. Soon to be fiancé, if only I had given my consent."

Corin grabbed Haru's wrist, slowing her from the hasty speed-walk she'd broken into. "Haru."

"What?"

"Tell me about this Phillip."

"Why?"

"You sound like you need to talk it over, that's all." He smiled and this time it looked almost like a boy's lopsided grin. As always, Haru was hit by the youth of this war-waging feline. "I promise to make no assumptions."

"... Thank you..."

"Now, while we walk, why don't you tell me what's been troubling you? You'll feel better for it, I promise."

Haru allowed a grudging smile. "I never thought I'd be taking emotional help from a fifteen year old boy – and a cat, at that."

"Teenagers aren't all hormones and mood-swings," Corin laughed. "We occasionally make use of our brain. Now, tell me what's been going on."

Haru didn't need to be told again. "There's not much to tell, I'm afraid–"

"Just a lot of emotional turmoil."

Haru nodded. "My father's been dead for about a year – a car accident, a stupid car accident; Mum was always saying he should take the roads a little slower – and not long ago she met Phillip. It was at one of her many quilting conventions – she dropped a box; he helped her tidying everything back up again – and they just... I don't know... they just seemed to click. Suddenly he was around more often than I was and she was always talking about him and I..." Haru sighed. "I was so angry. Angry that she had moved on from Dad so quickly when..."

"When you hadn't," Corin gently finished.

"Yes," Haru whispered. "It was so irrational..."

"No. It was logical. Rational, too. It makes sense."

"It wasn't right."

"That's not my place to say."

"I hated Phillip on principle, even after everything he tried... And I don't just mean that he bought expensive gifts or tried to buy me over or anything – he really tried. He talked to me, treated me like an adult even when I threw my childish tantrums, and tried to rationalise everything that I screamed at him. And, most importantly, he does love my mother." Haru's voice was rising and dropping, rolling with the emotional gush. "I see that now – that should have been enough to convince me from the start. But I was too angry. I just..."

"Yes?"

"I just couldn't see it," she sighed. "Refused to, I mean. I knew I wasn't the only one suffering there. I knew that Mum was as lonely and grief-stricken – perhaps more so – than I was, but I couldn't deal with her moving on while I was still as stuck as ever. And now she'll never know that I've realised that."

"I'm sure–"

"No, she won't," Haru cut across hoarsely. "You don't know what our last conversation was like. I said... so much that I regret, I don't even want to think it over again. But that'll be the last conversation we might ever have. What if I'm stuck like this forever?" she demanded, gesturing to herself for emphasis. "What if I spend the rest of my life in a fragile porcelain body? What if I never talk to her again? She'll always remember that as my final wish."

"Haru, I'm sure it isn't as bad as that..."

"Really? What if she never forgets our last words? If that triggers guilt? What if it's guilt enough to ruin her relationship with Phillip? I don't think I could... I couldn't cope with that..."

"Who says that you'll never find a way to return?" Corin asked. "Look around us – we're in the Cat Kingdom – a feat we've been struggling to achieve for too long! The Toy Kingdom is finally recovering – something long ago thought impossible by most! Even Baron has hope." He nudged her. "Who's to say there's no hope for you too?"

Haru smiled weakly. "I guess you're right. It is Christmas after all. If we can't hope now, when can we?"

ooOoo

Eternal noon meant no respite from the warm summer sunshine, the party were quick to discover. Within a span of half a day, Muta was complaining once again. Not that Haru could blame him; if she were human, she guessed she would already have called the journey to a halt. Corin looked rather tired too, which was enough to convince the toys to submit to Muta's calls.

The environment hadn't changed in that time of walking and, despite the occasional farmhouse from which they received no inquiries or approaching felines, their route was fairly monotonous. Catnip field after catnip field they walked through (although there was a mouse herd in one of the fields which had a particular offensive breed and resulted in the party scrambling disorderly over the nearest fence) and still there was little change in their surroundings.

After several more stops, some provocative complaints from Toto and a lot more walking, there had still been little alteration. Haru now walked alongside Baron at the tail end of the party, while the other toys took the front and the two true felines drifted in the middle.

"This kingdom is... really quite beautiful..." Haru remarked. She glanced at the calm blue sky. "It's so peaceful."

"Corin will make a good ruler for it."

The ballerina glanced to her feline companion. "You really do plan to overthrow the king, don't you?"

"We have explored and exploited every other option. We are left with only this now."

"I know, but to kill the King seems so..."

"Final?"

"I was going to say desperate."

"We are," Baron said simply. "The King has made us this way by his tyrannical ways."

"Tyrant or no tyrant, he is still Corin's grandfather," Haru said. She glanced to the smaller of the white cats before her and lowered her voice. "He is still his flesh and blood. Do you really think Corin will ever recover from having murdered one from his own family?"

"Whoever said anything about letting Corin do the deed?"

"I just assumed..."

"Corin has gone through much and become tougher than any cat his age should be, but even he should not have to follow through with pre-meditated murder."

"Does he know this?"

"He claims that it is his responsibility – his grandfather – but I have no intention of letting him do so. If he can't, then he will view that as a personal failure, and if he can..." Baron sighed and started again. "If he can, then he will have to live with blood on his paws for the rest of his life. I will not allow either."

"You're a good man, Baron."

He smiled weakly. "Don't you mean toy?"

He picked up his pace, starting forward just as Toto slowed to join them. Baron caught up with Corin and Muta, while Haru turned to the stone crow for conversation.

"That conversation looked pretty serious," Toto remarked. "What was it about?"

"The death of the King."

"Ah, you've heard Baron's plan then?"

"Yes. Although I see it's logical, I don't like the sound of anyone having blood on their hands..."

"Everyone's had to defend themselves in the last years," Toto said quietly. "No one, not even Corin, is completely clean from murder. This is war, after all."

"So why is Baron so intent on stopping Corin from committing the deed?"

"I do believe that Corin would be more affected by taking the life of his grandfather," Toto agreed, "but there is another issue at hand. The death of a king – even one as tyrannical as the current ruler – carries the death sentence."

"But..."

"No matter what kind of ruler he has been, the capital punishment still stands. Whoever does deal the final blow on the King will almost certainly be put to death."

"But, Corin–"

"Not even Corin will be able to remove that sentence. There will be public pressure to see justice served out to the murderer and, if Corin was to be the killer..."

"Baron's taking the blow for Corin then?"

"Baron knows exactly what he's risking." Toto glanced forward. "I think he believes it's the only difference he can make. Or, at least, that he once believed that." He looked back to Haru. "You've helped change that, I believe. You're giving him something new to hope for."

"Something new? What do you mean?"

"He once thought there was nothing truly worth living for in this life. You've shown him otherwise by being just yourself." A smile curved upwards on his stone beak. "Sometimes, we need to be more than we are, but sometimes – just sometimes – being yourself is just enough. And I think you'll find those moments are what matter most."

"Toto, you always talk as if I'm so important, as if my actions can change anything..."

The stone crow stared. "You mean he hasn't told you?"

"He hasn't told me what?"

"Well, I suppose he's best suited to telling you – although I don't know why he hasn't yet..."

"Told me what?" Haru demanded.

Toto stopped. "Haru, there are two important things you should know. First, that you are not as ordinary as you believe. And secondly, and more importantly, it is your kindness, hope and good-nature that has enabled your less-than-ordinariness to flourish and thrive. You may not be ordinary, but, by all the kingdoms, if you had no heart then being different would be no use at all."

"Different? What do you mean? How am I different? I'm just me... Tell me..."

Toto started walking again, continuing his strange hopping pace after the others. "Ask Baron."

"What–"

"The palace! I see the palace!" Hiromi's cry spun the conversation aside as she gestured to the whitewashed, haphazard building rising in turrets and spiralling in towers. It stood like a fairytale palace in a storybook setting. (Well, apart from the catnip; the fairytales had, for some reason, left them out...) Despite her prejudice against the feline monarch, it still took Haru's breath away.

"We're here."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Sorry for the late chapter – I started today with only 200 words and just couldn't find the time to write this up. Thank you, as always, for you indulgence and patience and I can only hope I get tomorrow's chapter done in better time!**

**On another note, congratulations on everyone who got the Troy/Trojan Horse reference and another congratulation for the extraspecialawesome people who got the Doctor Who reference on top of that! I'm so happy to be writing for such an educated audience.**

**Cat. **


	20. Thursday 20th December

"_Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!" ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie_

x

Thursday 20th December 2012: A Conspiracy of Love

"The Solstice what?"

"Clean out your ears, Chicky. The Winter Solstice Celebration. It's the shortest day of the year–"

"Yes, I know what the solstice is. My point is, why celebrate it in a kingdom where it's eternally sunshine?" To prove her point, she gestured to the perfectly blue sky above. "Maybe in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the shortest day, but here it makes no difference!"

"Do you really think that changes anything? Cats will take any excuse to party."

"What Muta is trying to say," Baron smoothly interjected, "is that tomorrow there will be a grand party in the palace and, amid all the confusion and hassle, we have a significantly better chance of sneaking inside. Which is why we have agreed it will be a good idea to postpone any action until the morrow."

Crowded inside a rounded, abandoned hut located on the outskirts of a forgotten farm, there was the general agreement of nods from the rest of the party. The palace was only a stone's throw away but, with the numerous guards flocking about all entrances – and they had checked every entrance – getting inside was an impossibility right now.

"So what do we do now?"

"We wait. Wait and plan."

"Do we have a plan?"

"For any Cat Kingdom celebration, the King always orders a range of entertainment acts," Toto informed her. "Even in a war, we doubt this will have changed. This gives us the perfect opportunity to blend in with the crowds; between the clowns, dogs and bizarre costumes, we'll be nothing different from the rest. The guards won't spare us a second glance."

"And then?"

"And then we improvise," Baron answered.

"Improvise?"

"We have little idea what we will face in the palace. We are almost certainly going to abandon any plans due to one issue or another when we arrive inside. Therefore we have little option but to improvise."

Robin and Paris took that moment to reappear inside. "It's still all clear outside, although the entertainments acts haven't started to turn up. It's someone else's shift no."

"I'll go."

"Me too." Haru quickly followed after Baron. "Four eyes are better than two, right?"

Baron smiled. "True."

The appointed outpost was a small copse to the left of the farm, thick enough to hide any cat or toy that deigned to stand in its overbearing shadows. Here they could stand watch for any updates on the situation with minimal risk to being spotted. It was almost perfect.

"When are you going to tell Corin your plan?"

"Plan–?"

"Your plan to save him," Haru clarified. She looked to her feline companion. "He's going to realise at some point or another what you plan on doing. And he won't like it."

"No, he won't..."

"But it's very brave of you. To take such a blow for him..."

Baron frowned. "Who have you been talking to?"

"Toto. He told me why you're so intent to do the deed."

The cat figurine shook his head. "One of these days Toto will stop revealing other toy's secrets..."

"Unlikely." Haru sighed. "It's still brave of you. I'm not sure I would ever be able to do something like that."

"One can only hope you'll never have to make that decision," he murmured.

"And if I do?"

"Then you will have a difficult decision to make."

"How about you?"

"What?"

"How difficult was it to make the decision yourself?" Haru asked. "To take the blow for Corin?"

Baron only smiled. "Surprisingly simple. When you care for someone, it gives you strength."

"When you don't think you have anything to live for, it becomes increasingly simple," Haru remarked.

"Yes," he admitted.

"I won't try to talk you out of this, but at least tell me that isn't true. I've been trying to tell you for too long now that you have so much to live for. Be the martyr if you must, but do so with no regrets. Do it, knowing you will be missed and mourned for. Do it with pride for your legacy. Because that all is true."

"Haru, you have shown me all that and I do believe you. But that won't be able to stop me from doing this."

She poked his chest. "Weren't you listening? I respect you too much to try to convince you against this. I just want you to know that you are... loved by so many."

"I know, Haru. I know."

They stood in the silence of the Cat Kingdom, the sun eternally shining overhead and the sky its perfect as ever blue.

"Toto said that there was something else I should ask you about."

"He really needs to learn to keep his beak shut..."

"Baron? He said it was something important. Something that I should know." She paused. "Something about how I'm different."

"Of course you're different. You're a human soul within a toy."

"I don't think that's what he meant, Baron."

Baron sighed. He stepped away and then back; as Haru watched, she could see the conflict almost take on a tangible presence in his eyes. He stepped back to her. He embraced her suddenly. "You are different because you've achieved what no other has achieved in the last fifteen year. You've melted this frozen, war-torn heart of mine. That, Haru, is what makes you so special."

"Simple kindness isn't special," Haru insisted.

"Yes, it is. And the simplicity of it is what makes it beautiful."

Haru just leant into his embrace. "Baron... what would you say if I told you that I wanted to stay here?"

"I would remind you of your mother and Phillip."

She grimaced. "Looks like Toto isn't the only one who can't keep his mouth shut."

"I'm afraid not."

"But if I found a way... to see my mother again to tell her the news, how would you react if I stayed here afterwards? With you," she added.

"But, the war–"

"Nothing lasts forever, Baron. Not even this war." She moved away. "Unless, of course, you don't want me to stay–"

He embraced her again so suddenly, Haru was glad her porcelain skin was tougher than it looked. "Don't, for one moment, imagine that I'd ever be happier without you. But you know the fate I plan to take–"

"I know. But I believe we'll be able to find a way around it. Even if it means going on the run or fleeing into another world. I'm not going to abandon you."

"Just kiss already!"

Both jumped. Looking behind them, they found the majority of their party shamelessly watching the intimate discussion. If either of the figurines had been able to blush, it would have been very probable they would.

"They sound like they're expecting a show," Haru murmured.

"Then why don't we give them one?"

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Again, sorry for the super-short chapter. Time is pressing on and I wanted to have enough time to do the later chapters justice (in other words, the chapters where stuff actually happens because even I have to admit this chapter isn't much more than a glorified fluffy filler) but didn't want to miss a day. I know I don't usually stoop to such levels (or, at least, I hope I don't; I'm trying to kick the habit) but I hope the Christmas spirit will entice you to forgive this poor, hassled, sleep-deprived author.**

**Merry Christmas.**

**Cat.**


	21. Friday 21st December

"_Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect." ~ Oren Arnold_

x

Friday 21st December 2012: Respect

As Friday evening drew closer, the back servant entrance began to swarm with crowds of hopeful entertainers. It was in this mishap of confusion that the intruders snuck into, as they were shoved, elbowed and generally pushed around in the excitable crowd.

"Whatever... happened... to queuing!?" Haru demanded as she was elbowed to the side by a trio of cats carrying parasols and acrobatic balls. She ruefully rubbed at her arm, aware that if she were human that would have resulted in some bad bruising. As things stood, she was lucky to escape without a crack.

"There's a reason you have the saying 'like herding cats' Chicky. And you're looking at it."

"Nonetheless..." Baron stepped between Haru and the worst of the crowds, painfully aware of the ballerina's delicate state, "perhaps it would be a good idea to get ourselves signed in sooner rather than later." He nudged Haru towards Muta who, for obvious reasons, was having no problem carving out a path through the maze of felines. "Keep going towards the registration desk; I'll be back in a moment."

"Wait, what–?"

"Keep your fur on, Chicky; he'll be back. He's probably just thought of something."

"Well I wish he'd thought of it earlier." Haru edged towards Muta to avoid getting elbowed by another set of entertainers, this time a couple with one holding a collection of fish-themed throwing daggers. Baron had been right though; in the colourful, the bizarre and the just plain weird selection of the entertainers, they were barely spared a second glance. That was, at least, until they finally came to the front of the 'queue'.

A black and white tom, clearly bored out of his mind, motioned the previous collection of entertainers through the back door and gestured for the intruders to step forward. "Name, number, timing and act."

"What?"

The guard looked up from the pile of paper he was going through and irritably repeated his demand. "Name, number, timing and act."

"The name's Mr Mistoffelees. Or Misto, if you prefer." Baron appeared before the desk, a collar in hand which linked him to Toto. Haru tried not to stare, but it was difficult. "We number in eight, our performance should last half an hour and we are a circus group. Is that everything you need to know?"

The palace cat waved a feathered quill in Haru's direction. "And what about her?" he snarled. "She's not a cat – she's not even real. She's a toy."

"She's mine." He stood between Haru and the guard, an unfamiliar haughty expression dominating his features. "I bought her off a trader and she's one of my best attractions. So harm her and I'll be taking out your life's wages for loss of business," he bluntly threatened.

The guard raised an eyebrow, but the threat hadn't been entirely lost on him. "If she's so precious, why aren't you keeping a tighter hold on her? The doll could run off at any moment."

"Do you really think any of these toys are going to run off with him keeping watch?" Baron drawled. He motioned lazily to Muta who, under the circumstances, looked sufficiently intimidating. "Trust me, none of them are going to doing any funny business while my back is turned."

The feline sniffed. "Come to it, you smell funny too. Are you even a cat or just a toy?"

"You think years working with toys won't leave its impact?" Baron curled his lip. "You must be even dumber than you look. Now, are you going to let us in or not? I promise you the King will not be amused when he discovers that you've turned away none other than Mr Mistoffelees, the original conjuring cat!"

"Alright, alright!" The guard huffed and hastily marked their information down on the sheet. "Go on in. Third door on your left will lead you into the costume and prop room – get yourselves ready and don't cause a scene." As the party walked inside, Haru heard him mutter derisively, "Circus folk... Mad as a Cheshire, the lot of them..."

Once safely inside, Muta sighed and stretched his podgy arms out. "Well, that was simple."

"That was close," Haru amended. "I thought for sure he was going to call the rest of the guards out."

"But he didn't, Chicky, so don't go looking a gift horse in the mouth."

Corin, who had been quietly staying at the back, out of sight, murmured, "Nonetheless, we still have quite a way to go. We may be inside, but this ordeal isn't over yet."

"Party poopers, all of you..."

"Maybe so, but at least we have a plan," Baron said.

"We have a plan?"

"Since when?"

"Well, that was unexpected."

Baron ignored the onslaught of responses – not all of them sarcastic – and opened the prop and costume door open. "Well, what better way to get close to the King than to entertain for him? Come along; we have a performance to prepare for." Already he had picked out a hat, boots and cape. "After all..." He tied the last item on with an elaborate flourish. "The show must go on."

This started the rest into digging out costumes or props that would hide their identities, although Toto couldn't do much and Corin's eyes would always be too remarkable. Haru was found in the dress section, trying to pick out something that would cover her current dress; her ballerina outfit would always be too noticeable for the King not to realise who she was. Baron, now kitted out in an outfit that Haru could only compare to the old-fashioned musketeer movies, joined her in the search.

"Do you know what kind of dress you are looking for?"

"Something to hide the ballerina dress," Haru answered simply.

Baron brought out a large, gaudy, yellow dress that poofed out so far that it would certainly hide the tutu. "There's this." He looked to Haru and both burst out laughing. "Maybe not..."

"Maybe not," she readily agreed. "Oh, what about this?" She found a dress that would cover her overtly recognisable outfit, supplied with shoes and this time simple enough to avoid earning her immediate scorn. It was a dark blue that matched the inky colour of Baron's cape, with silver star patterning spiralling down the side and spilling onto the skirt. In fact, Haru concluded as she brought it up to the light, it was rather pretty.

"It looks your size. Try it on."

Sparing no thought for the ballerina dress that she was unable to remove, she pulled the fabric over her head, tugging the skirt over her original one. Glancing back to Baron, she asked, "You wouldn't mind doing the back up, would you? Only I can't reach from this angle."

"Sure."

She glanced over her other shoulder. "We almost look like a matching pair in these costumes."

Baron chuckled. "I'm sure that will only serve to help our circus personas. How is that?" He finished the last of the lacing. "Too tight?"

"No, it's fine." She frowned slightly, turning to face her companion. "You're still too recognisable. The King will realise it's you the moment you step into the hall. Wait – I have an idea." Motioning for him to wait, she disappeared into the walk-in wardrobe, sliding between the racks of dresses and reappearing a moment later with a small box of masks. "Pick one."

"You think of everything."

"If I thought of everything, I wouldn't be in this mess," she lightly reminded him. She picked at some feathered ones, righting out the wilting plumage. "Which one takes your fancy?"

Baron shuffled through until he brought out a matching pair of light blue masks, decorative spirals curling round the edges and eyes. "Well, you did say we look like a pair." He offered her the smaller of the two. "And you are just as much at risk of being recognised as I am."

She smiled and took the proffered item. "Thanks. Do you know what kind of performance we're going to put on?"

"That's simple. You're going to dance."

Haru wished she could pale. "Dance?"

"I've seen you dance. You're wonderful, Haru."

"I don't suffer from stage fright," she quickly assured. "But, it's just... you know... dancing for the King seems to be tempting fate. What if something goes wrong? What if our disguise is revealed?"

Baron sighed and placed both hands on her shoulders. "It'll go fine, Haru. Just dance and everyone will be too captivated by your beauty to pay any attention to who might be behind the masks. Trust me, Haru; you are our best performer."

"How do you plan to...?" She glanced around; the room was too crowded for her to ask the question frankly. Luckily it appeared Baron had a good idea what was plaguing her mind.

"Don't worry; I have it sorted out." He revealed a short blade hidden in the interior of his jacket, slim and subtle. "You and I will be dancing; this we can use to get close to the King and I will do the deed. But you will have no part in it."

"What have you told...?" She nodded gently towards the small figure of Corin, shadowed by the protective form of Muta.

"I've told him to wait for my signal."

"That signal will never come."

"And he won't realise until it's too late."

"You know there is so much that could go wrong, right?"

Baron grinned, although there was worry behind the emotion. "I am fully aware of that. Luckily my penchant for improvisation has often saved me from many such situations."

"Talking of your improvisational streak... where did you get Toto's collar from?"

"Bargained for it from one of the other acts. Because there would have been no way they'd let a creature like Toto in without some obvious form of restraint."

"Bargained? Bargained with what?" She frowned. "Baron, where's your hat?"

"Well, to gain something one has to give also."

"But... it's your hat..."

"It's just a hat."

Haru wanted to disagree – his had was so much more; a part of his image, a part of him – but couldn't quite bring herself to haul up the discussion. Things felt simple right now – surprisingly so considering their predicament. It was delicate, dangerous work they were undertaking, but they were working together. She didn't want to upset that balance.

It was several hours before the celebration started; about half an hour before the selected entertainers were ushered into a side room, awaiting to be called up to amuse their temperamental monarch. Various individuals were beginning to show signs of agitation – the throwing-knife feline was nervously turning the prop over in his paws, the felines with their parasols and balancing balls were practising standing atop them, and one feline with a small dog (although the canine was larger than the cat) was giving the other animal a quick pep talk.

"Why is everyone so nervous?" Haru whispered across to Baron. She was seated beside Baron and Muta – although the latter took up more than his fair share of seating so she was somewhat squashed between the two. "I mean, sure – he's the king and all that – but other than that, they should know what they're putting themselves up for..."

Muta gave a low chuckle.

Baron answered. "The King is a... difficult one to sufficiently amuse."

Haru glanced to Muta, then to Baron. When neither added anything, she looked back to Muta. "And... what exactly does that mean?"

"That means that he throws out the ones he don't like, Chicky." Muta chuckled again and this time with a recognisable morbid humour. "Out the window."

"Out–"

"But we are sure to be up to the task," Baron smoothly assured. He raised one unimpressed eyebrow Muta's way.

"What? Just telling her what to expect."

"It was not necessary."

"It's alright. I'm fine," Haru insisted. She now felt sicker than before, but luckily her porcelain form determined any hurling an impossibility. She leant against Baron. "How long until we get called up?"

"Not long now."

She closed her eyes, the phantom feeling of nerves creeping through her system. "What day is it today?"

"The... twenty-first, I believe. Why?"

Haru laughed. "The world's meant to end today. You know what that means?"

"That the ruddy author will never get this story finished?"

"What was that, Muta?"

"Nothing."

Haru laughed again, lightly and quietly. "It seems ridiculous, doesn't it? That we'd go through all of this and then the world just ended anyway... "

"It makes this seem pointless?" Baron asked.

"I guess...maybe? I don't think the world will end but, if we just imagined for a moment it did... then all this preparation and travelling would all be in vain... It would all be slightly ironic."

"Let's just imagine, for a moment, that the world was going to end today – does that make our efforts any less important?" Baron asked gently. "All our adventures and mishaps, all our bravery and wisdom learnt here... does that make all this worthless? Nothing lasts forever and, no matter what happens tonight, we would always die sooner or later. But if you spend your life thinking that death strips away your accomplishments, then you'll never do anything of note. So smile, and remember you've done your best. No one can ask for anything more."

"Alright!" A small tan cat, the appointed entertainment organiser (whether self-appointed or by royal decree, Haru guessed it didn't matter to him; he seemed like the sort of feline with even fewer marbles than the majority of the cat race) gestured excitably for attention. "The celebration's started, so you will all be going in! When I motion for you to step forward once one act is finished, you go up and strut your stuff! Alright?"

His enthusiasm didn't do much for the nervous gathering of entertainers. Most nodded, a few just hastily continued with their practice.

Another feline – this one bearing glasses and too-long sleeves that continuingly slipped over his paws – appeared around the curtain. "Natoru, are they all ready? The King is getting impatient."

"Yeah, they're all ready."

The bespectacled feline cast one calm expression over the disorganised mob of felines and accompanying acts. "Really?" Deciding nothing could be done to amend the nervous state of the entertainers, he sighed and motioned for them to head towards the partitioning curtain. "Stand by the side and don't attract attention until it's your turn. Quick, now!"

"Sheesh, what's got his tail in a knot?" Muta muttered. Toto cackled as loudly as he dared and none-too-gently shoved the fat cat forward.

The celebration was taking place in a large, round ballroom of sorts, the ceiling spiralling up into the centre and pale pillars standing to attention round the middle. The entertainers were ushered between two of the pillars and motioned to be silent. Directly across to them was the King, lounging in his throne while being waited on hand and foot. Haru edged behind Baron, suddenly no longer so sure of their disguises. They seemed so flimsy, so easily torn away for their task set.

Baron placed a reassuring arm around her shoulder, but spoke no words.

The tan cat – Natoru, Haru believed he was called – motioned for the first act to start. In this case, it was the parasol-bearing felines. All three of them rushed on and started into a frenzied balancing act, the music rushing alongside them in playful harmony. Despite any previous impression of the pushy cats, even Haru found herself smiling slightly.

The King, however, was not impressed.

"Not good enough! NEXT!"

One of the felines fell off the balancing ball, just landing on all fours and the three of them scurried off. Natoru motioned for a pale pink cat to take the stage – this appeared to be an impersonating feline of sorts, using markings on its fur to mimic a dog, then an elephant. Quite what else it planned to do next was a mystery, for it was at that point that the King gave the same barking conclusion as before and it quickly scampered off. From thereon in, the acts came and went at an ever faster pace – the sword-thrower only got through three daggers, the snake charmer didn't even have time to play a single note and the brick-breaker only had enough time to break one aforementioned brick. Although the latter might have been because he broke his paw after the first attempt.

All in all, though, by the time so many had come and gone, the rest of the entertainers were beginning to get nervous.

"I've heard he's temperamental, but this is insane," one of the cats whispered.

"How are we meant to impress him if we can't even perform fast enough?" another agreed.

"Whoever's next better not stink, GOT IT?"

Natoru motioned for the next set of entertainers to step forward, but the felines at the front only proceeded to edge back. Haru caught Baron's eye. "Now?"

He grinned. "Now."

He stepped smartly forward, his footsteps confident and assured as he approached the royal table. Haru followed, with slightly less assurance.

"You Majesty, I promise to entertain you. For, all the way from our warring opponents, I bring a gem unlike no other. I present to you Coppélia, our very own Snowdrop Dancer." He brought Haru round, a small, reassuring smile – much more gentle than the persona he had been trying so hard to sell to the palace cats – playing across his feline lips. "Just dance."

He stepped back, releasing her as the first few notes began to play in the background.

It was a song that was eerily close to the Nutcracker score. It was a gentle, traditional melody that jumped between restful waltzes and restless leaps, music that wouldn't need a routine – music that lead Haru through the movements with soothing ease. Letting the dancer in her take over, she spun into a dizzying routine, twirling and jumping and watching the room dance around her.

She slowed long enough to spot Baron standing patiently to the sidelines. It occurred to her that she always lost track of time while dancing; she had little clue as to how long she had been dancing for the King. But the music was still playing and there had been no outcry from the longhair royal and so she continued to dance. She steadied her pace, glancing back to Baron. He nodded.

They were ready.

She pirouetted towards the wooden figurine, slowing just long enough to offer a hand. In taking it, he was spun into the dance. The solo became a duet – and, for the briefest of moments, they allowed themselves to forget the dreadful task that lay before them.

"Coppélia, huh?"

"You liked the reference?"

"Yes, yes, you're very clever." She spun and the world twirled dizzily around her. She ended yet closer to Baron. "The Mistoffelees name was a nice touch too."

"You're a Cats fan?"

"Of the book and musical." As she twirled once again, she caught sight of the King. "How close will you need to be?"

"As close as possible."

"Understood." Haru began drifting their dance in the direction of the royal table. "You ready?"

"Yes. And, Haru?"

"What?"

As they neared the table, he leant closer, lowering his voice to hide their murmured discussion. "I know you have a blatant disregard for following instructions, but there is one thing you must promise me."

"What is it?"

He lowered his voice yet quieter; the music almost drowned out his whispered words. "When I do the deed, run."

"And leave you in the lurch? Never."

"You must!" he hissed. "Haru, the only reason I'm asking rather than ordering is because you never follow my orders. And this is the one thing you must do – for me. For yourself."

"When you do this–"

"I know what the consequences are. I'm prepared."

"So am I."

"No, Haru. No, you're not."

She set her face into a frown. "Shouldn't I be the one to make that decision?"

"I've had twenty years to think this over. Twenty years pinning but still continuing to lose my humanity. I will not insult your strength, but this is something beyond what you should be called to do. Please Haru, as your friend I ask you to do this for me. When the time comes, will you run?"

"You're not going to run, are you?"

"Someone has to take the blame."

She sighed and slowed the dance, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I see nothing I say will change your decision. So I promise to run if you promise one thing in return."

"What?"

She looked up. "If you have a chance to live, take it."

They stopped before the royal table, the music still soaring and flying in the background. Baron nodded. "Agreed."

Haru smiled sadly. "Let's do this."

They broke apart in a flurry of movement; Haru running towards the servants' exit and Baron whipping out the concealed weapon. Leaping over the table, he bared down upon the monarch; the plates and drinks were knocked off in the movement, the glasses shattering across the floor and the food scattering over it. Using his momentum, he drove towards the King.

Black arms caught round his raised hand, dragging him back. Across the room, Haru had been blocked by more police cats of the same and the rest of the party had been singled out. Haru twisted against her captor to see Baron as caught as her, the dagger kicked away and two guards pinning his arms behind his back as he was forced to kneel before the Cat King.

The King approached the figurine. In the background a clock struck twelve.

"Hello, Baron."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Yikes! A day late! I hope the action-stuff happening in this chapter will be enough to tide you over and I'll try and get today's chapter up... sometime soon. I don't know when because it's so far from getting written and all I know is that I **_**will**_** get it written... eh, soonish. **

**And, yes, I know I don't usually (if ever) break the fourth wall, but it was too tempting to resist today (yesterday). It deserved a reference at the very least.**

**Merry Christmas and God bless,**

**Cat.**


	22. Saturday 22nd December

_The universal joy of Christmas is certainly wonderful. We ring the bells when princes are born, or toll a mournful dirge when great men pass away. Nations have their red-letter days, their carnivals and festivals, but once in the year and only once, the whole world stands still to celebrate the advent of a life. ~ Author Unknown_

x

Saturday 22st December 2012: Red-Letter Days

"Hello Baron." The King leant down towards the captive figurine, a grotesque smile stretching across his furry muzzle. "Did you really think I'd be that thick to be deceived by a cape and a..." He snatched the mask off, snapping the string and tossing it across the room, "flimsy mask? Did you really think I wouldn't realise what you were up to?"

Baron growled, straining against his restrainers. "Tell your guards to release me and let us settle this the proper way – cat to cat."

"I don't think so. You had your chance. And you butchered it." His eyes flickered up to the rest of the captured party. Haru was still held in the middle of the room; a small, delicate ballerina amongst a room of cats. Baron caught the flickering gaze.

"Let the others go. They're of no interest to you. Just let them go."

"Now, why would I do that? Especially when, as you so perfectly put it, you've brought such a _gem_?"

Baron released a guttural, animalistic growl, lashing back at his captives. "Don't you dare touch her! Don't you dare..."

"Or what? Or _what_, you worthless pile of matchsticks? It seems you still haven't learnt your lesson – perhaps losing the other ear will do you some good." He ran one claw over the blunted ear, leaving a scar along the wood. He paused, his eyes hesitating in their bulging, mad gaze to concentrate on the severed ear. "Wait..." He sheathed the claw, prodding the ear with the tip of his paw. "It's healed..."

Baron growled and flinched away from the contact. "It's none of your business."

The Cat King smirked; the expression slipped slowly over his furry features. "Oh, so you know too..."

"Know? What is there to know?"

"Don't act innocent with me." The King knelt down, the smirk now tugging downwards into a scowl. "I don't like it when cats act dumb. And I especially don't like that kind of attitude from toys like you."

"What do you mean?"

The King grabbed Baron's chin, forcing their eyes to meet. "The girl's true potential. You know the magic that exists within her. And I promise you this – I will crush her like I crushed your last queen." His grip tightened. "Crush her until you'll have to sweep what's left of her up so don't act innocent with me."

There was a scuffle across the room as Haru freed one hand and smacked her captor upside his head. Slamming a foot down, she left the feline yowling in agony as she started across the room. She barely got three feet before a fresh cat caught her. Caught again, she couldn't throw off the new felines. She tried to tug her hand free, but found her palm spasm in pain. She gasped and turned her hand over to reveal a long crack along the breadth of her palm. It appeared she had hit once too many times and once too hard.

The guard yanked her hand away, bringing the cracked palm up to the light. The crevice glimmered in the light. "Now, what do we have here...?"

The King's curiosity got the better of him. "What's happened?"

"She's cracked herself! Stupid toy's cracked her hand!"

The King smirked. "This I've got to see." He stood up, releasing Baron with a sharp flick. He nodded to the cats who were still keeping him in place. "Make sure he doesn't slip away. He's a slick character – or was once, anyway. And you..." He smirked once more in Baron's face. "I'll be back. Right after I've finished with your little queen."

He threw back his head and laughed as Baron struggled once again against his captors. "Struggle all you like, Baron. It won't make a whisker of a difference." He approached Haru, a smile she decided she definitely didn't like playing out across his muzzle. One paw hooked itself around her wrist, dragging her palm closer for his personal perusal. "Ah, yes... Now that's a killer crack and a half. That's going to... _hurt_, isn't it?" He applied pressure at the emphasized word.

Haru winced, breath hitching in her throat.

"Oh, I see it does. Well then, do your little trick then. Heal yourself."

Through the haze of pain, Haru felt her brow furrow. "W... What?"

The King tilted his head to one side; a typical feline action that was also accompanied by the typical feline smirk. He glanced back to the wooden figurine. "Ah, Baron, I see you've been keeping secrets. Such a bad habit, especially as secrets have a habit of... biting back..."

"Secrets?" Haru looked to Baron. "What secrets?"

Baron opened his mouth, but the King made a violent shushing motion. "Oh, it's too late now, Baron, to undo your mistake. Time for me to spill the beans. Our little ballerina here is none other than the next toy monarch!"

"What–"

"And apparently no one has seen fit to inform the china doll of this important little titbit of information. You, my dear, have magic." The words were growled out as he leant towards the ballerina. Haru leant away, but could only have so much movement with two guards holding her down. "I knew from the moment the scouts came back from the Frozen Ocean. Ten years!" The King abruptly rose to his feet, his voice addressing the whole room as if this were a performance. "Ten years since the Frozen Ocean became ice and not once has that changed! And then a small, insignificant, delicate figurine turns up and suddenly it's melted back."

He drifted over to Baron. "You know, you should be grateful for that. If it hadn't been for her and her intriguing magic, I would have had my cats cut you down before you ever got near to the camp. You think it was a coincidence you met so few of my felines while travelling? That getting across the portal was so simple? I _planned_ that."

"Why?" Baron hissed. "Why go to all that trouble?"

"Why? Because I was curious, that's why! I wanted to see the little ballerina that had caused your world such hope – and then I wanted to crush it! I originally planned to flush you out of your rat-tunnels – a simple cave-in would suffice – and then, when you were out there, so exposed and easy, my cats would bring back your heads. But after hearing about your little queen I needed to see that happen in person. Hearing it would no longer be good enough. And I knew you wouldn't be able to resist sneaking in during the Winter Solstice Celebration; all I needed to do was wait."

"What do you plan to do with us?"

"Oh, I think I'll destroy all you nasty toys and my treacherous two subjects." He leant in, the sadistic smile spreading right around his face. "You, I'll build a special pyre, just so I can watch you burn. I want to watch you turn to ash, just like your last queen did." The smirk twitched. "You should be thanking me. Finally you'll meet your first queen again, the one you've been pinning after all these years."

The King glanced back to the captive Haru.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but you were always going to be second place. You see, the Baron and the queen... they were made for one another. Now that's something I bet he didn't tell you."

He looked to Baron.

"Oh, was I not meant to say that? I wouldn't worry – you don't have long to let it plague you. Give me a day or so to get the arrangements sorted, and I'll have a nice little bonfire ready for you. As for your porcelain queen, I'm afraid she's going to meet a rather... broken end, if you get my drift." He yawned. "That's enough monologuing for one day. Guards! Take these traitors... _all_ of them... to the dungeons." He turned away. "I have a party to enjoy."

ooOoo

"You should have told me."

In the hollow space of the dungeons, Corin's quiet voice carried. The small feline leant against the bars of his cage, his white fur startlingly bright in the darkness of the cells. Mismatched eyes, hurt eyes, stared out of his cage to the ones where the others resided. His blue eye stared out unseeing, as blind as ever.

"And told you _what_, Corin?"

"I don't know. Just _something_. Like, how come the first I hear of your plan is when you're attempting to stick a knife in the King?"

"Corin–"

"Did you think I couldn't handle it? That I wouldn't be able to do it?" His voice grew sharp, cutting through the air between them. "I've been in this war for as long as I can remember; don't give me those dog-stinking excuses."

"I didn't know whether you would be able to do it or not," Baron answered truthfully. "And you shouldn't have to live with it–"

"I was born into this war, so don't tell me that," Corin growled. "He's _my_ grandfather, _my_ responsibility and I will _not_ have you bypassing it so easily. Over the years I've had to kill to defend myself too many times – what would one more death – one more death that would bring about an end to this war – matter to me? Why wouldn't I be able to handle it?"

"I don't think it was just a matter of being able to handle it." Toto hopped over to the edge of his cage, his ebony beak catching the light as it peered through the bars. "You know that, no matter how terrible a King your grandfather was, there will still be cats baying for revenge. Whoever did the deed will be held responsible; I don't think even you would be able to escape it."

"Sorry, kid, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this) I think birdbrain's right." Muta's gruff voice trudged out of a cell further along. His white fur could just be seen in the shadows. "We couldn't risk losing you in such a risky move. Baron made the right decision."

At the words from his long-standing guardian, Corin visibly deflated. "I just... It was just important to me..."

"We know. But do you see our reasoning now?"

The small cat shook his head in defeat. "I wish I didn't, but I do. I understand, but I wish you had tried to explain it all earlier. I shouldn't have had to learn it like this." Corin sighed. "Not much we can do about it now, anyway. Looks like we've reached a dead end."

"I'd wait until it's over, kid, before saying that."

"Really, Muta? Because this looks like it's pretty much over to me."

Muta grunted and turned away in his cell. "Kid, a lot can happen in a day. But if you give up hope then you'll never take the chances that come."

At the mention of hope, Baron glanced over to Haru's cell. She was caged opposite him, but hadn't said a word since their capture. In the deep darkness of the dungeon, alleviated only by the flickering torches, her porcelain form was barely visible. But he could see her, leaning against the back of the cell; the firelight gave just enough glow for the white of her face to be seen staring apathetically out.

Baron edged to the front of his cell. "Haru?"

She turned away.

"Haru, please just let us talk."

"What difference will it make?" she asked hoarsely. If she felt the other prisoners go quiet at her words – quiet with listening, not just quiet with lack of words – she ignored it. "Corin's right – we've reached the end of the line. We failed."

"Not yet, we haven't," Muta grunted. "Believe me, Chicky, I don't plan on going down without a fight."

"Don't you see? We did put up a fight – and we lost."

"Haru–"

"Don't talk to me, Baron."

There was a pained silence.

"Haru, please..."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice, so acute and sharp, carried easily along the corridor for all the prisoners to hear. "In all the time we've been together, why couldn't you drop a hint? Or tell me outright? Why did I have to learn the truth from that..." She waved her hand violently down the corridor. "That... _thing_?"

"I didn't want you to feel burdened with responsibilities."

Haru's laugh was sharp and as cutting as her words. "Burdened? You have no idea what kind of person I am then, Baron. I've been trying so hard to be of some use to this mission – and I've felt so... _freaking useless_ in this delicate body! And now you're telling me that I have the potential to be so much more – so much more useful, strong... so able? I've hated having to stand back – and the only thing that has kept me in check is the knowledge that smashing myself to pieces won't help anyone."

"Haru, listen–"

"No, you listen to me!" She turned abruptly to the wooden figurine. "You're doing to me exactly what you did to Louise! By treating me like some delicate damsel in distress rather than an individual ready to fight by her own right, you endangered this whole mission! You endangered all the toys and cats you swore to protect! Don't you see?" For the first time, her voice dropped to a quiet, almost gentle, tone. "I'm not just angry because you kept the truth from me. I'm angry because in doing so you've risked everyone else's safety."

"I felt it was the right thing to do."

Haru deflated. She sighed and looked away. "Of course you did."

Awkward silence settled over the other prisoners, sensing that this conversation wasn't quite finished and somehow unable to break into new discussion. The toys and cats were spread out across the corridor, each individual isolated in their separate cell. Moving towards the front of her prison, Haru leant against the door's bars. Now the light could reach her face, casting her white porcelain skin a flickering flame colour.

"Baron?"

He nodded his acknowledgement. "Yes, Haru?"

"What... What did he mean... about you and Louise being made for each other...?"

Baron sighed. "I hoped no one would ever bring it up. This figurine body was made alongside Louise to be her partner, but the magic of creation never touched it the way it did Louise."

"Why was that?"

"Louise had all sorts of ideas, some more fanciful than others. The artisan who created her made her into a feline likeness of a woman he loved – and love is as powerful as any child's imagination; Louise suggested that this meant that the artisan poured more of his love into her creation and this was enough to make the difference. She also suggested that sometimes a toy doesn't come alive and there's no rational justification for this discrepancy."

"She had another explanation, didn't she?"

Baron's eyes, which had been taking great interest in the dusty dirt ground until now, flickered up to meet Haru's. A weak smile twitched at the very corners of his lips. "She had a great deal of fantastical ideas, but there was one she clung onto more stubbornly than the others. She proposed that it wasn't a matter of rationality or random selection, but of fate. That I was always meant to take the body of this figurine. That I was meant to become part of this war. That I would somehow play a part in this world's recovery." His eyes flickered back down to the nondescript floor. "I always scoffed at her for holding that belief so tightly."

"And now?"

When his eyes moved back up, he held the eye contact with a surreally steady sureness. "From what I saw while in the Amasawas' home, it was clear that you had possessed the Snowdrop Dancer for a long time and that it indeed held a special place in your heart. And yet not even that had sparked life into it. And now here you stand, the Kingdom's new monarch, bearing the magic that has been healing the land from the first moment you stepped into it. Haru, if fate hasn't been meddling in your life, then there is no way to explain the way it has all fitted together."

Haru didn't answer for a period – she couldn't; the words just refused to come. Emotions warred past her face – disbelief, despair, denial ... and hope. "That implies..." she slowly started, "that you also see your own change into the Baron as part of your own fate. That you were brought here to do good."

The smile that had twitching at his lips tugged one side up in a gentle, affectionate expression. "At the start of this month, I would have denied that with every fibre of my being. But I do see that my time here hasn't been all bad – and that I have made a difference even if at times I struggle to see that. You've helped me to turn that around and for that you've done so much more than saving my life – you've saved my heart."

"You don't know how glad that makes me," Haru said softly. She regarded the familiar face – the quiet smile, the dusty, pale-grey suit, the bright emerald eyes – and a sigh slipped past her lips. "I wish I could have known you as Humbert Gikkingen." She stretched out her hand towards his cell opposite, seeking the vain comfort that as long as they were together everything would work out alright somehow.

"As do I. As do I." Baron reached out with his hand, gloved fingers stretching out.

Haru urged her fingers to cover the last few inches between them, still no contact as she strained forward. Their fingers brushed past just as a jolt of pain shot throw her palm. She yelped and withdrew her hand, quickly finding the crack to have snapped further along her wrist.

"Haru–"

"I'm alright. It's alright," she hastily assured. "I just... Darn it, I just forgot about this..." She smiled weakly. "I guess one crack is going to be the least of my troubles if the King carries out his threat."

"Don't say that, Haru."

"It's true, isn't it?"

There was a telltale click of the dungeon door being opened and silence seeped out across the prisoners. In the glimmering torchlight, the form of a dark longhair could be seen to approach them, another pair of cats flanking him. Haru scooted into the shadows of her cell, but that didn't prevent the King from stopping at her door. He motioned for one of the guards to unlock her cell.

She rose unsteadily to her feet. "What is it? What do you want?"

"I have a proposal..."

"Save them. I don't accept terms from overgrown hairballs."

Irritated, the King gave a grunting command under his breath to his two lackeys. They retrieved the porcelain ballerina from the back of the cell, dragging her forward despite her muted protests. Now forced out into the corridor, she stood before the King. Too close for her liking. He extended one claw and ran it along her jaw; she flinched away at the contact.

"It's true... you are a very pretty thing." He clicked his tongue as his claw manoeuvred her face round for inspection. "I can see why the Baron likes you."

"As if he's that shallow," Haru forced between clenched teeth. "He likes me for who I am."

"Keep telling yourself that, Babe. But you better keep listening if you want to save your wooden little friend." He saw her eyes flash, a new interest sparking in her polished pupils. "Ah, that caught your attention, didn't it? Well, I was merely thinking – since I lack a queen and haven't got anyone to share my expanding empire with, then who better to take that place than the Toy Queen?"

She leant back as far as she was able, which wasn't much but she managed to elbow her captives a foot or so backwards. Enough to get the King's face out of hers. "You're disgusting."

"I wouldn't be so quick to judge. After all, it's the only way to save your companions."

She hesitated. "You're lying. You would never allow Corin or Baron to walk free."

"True," the King admitted. "But I might be less prone to barbeque your figurine friend if I had something to... sweeten my nature."

"You're lying," she hissed, and this time there was more confidence in her words.

"So... that's a no?"

"You haven't got a snowball's chance in hell." She slammed a china foot down on his paw, leaving him to release a pained howl. She was quickly dragged back by the guards, but just the sound of his pain was enough to leave Haru smirking. It didn't last long.

He approached the ballerina, an ugly scowl dominating his expression as his paw grabbed her face. "That... was a foolish mistake. I oughta smash you right here right now–"

"Go ahead. I dare you," she growled.

"You think I'll make it that simple?" He dragged her face closer. "You really think I'll let it end that quickly? Or that I'd break such a beautiful toy? Let me tell you something – if I smash you, you won't return to your human self. You were bound to a toy and a toy's ending you shall receive unless I choose to change that. So let me just squash whatever hope you had."

"You think I care?" A determined grin set itself on Haru's lips. "I knew what I was setting myself into. I knew what the chances of my survival was in this adventure, but you know what?" Her eye caught Baron, shrouded in shadow and still lacking his top hat, one ear severed but slowly healing and his eyes as bright as ever. She hung onto those green orbs. "I've had the time of my life and I wouldn't change one second of it."

The King's scowl turned grotesque, altering his whole face into an image of disgust. "I can see simple destruction won't cut it then. Well, I guess it would be a shame to destroy something so... pretty. Luckily, it isn't the option I have hiding up my sleeve." He grabbed her wrist, making her cry out in pain as he applied pressure onto the crack. "Say goodbye."

The crown gem shone a glaring purple, blinding Haru in a vortex of colour. The world spun and it felt as if the ground had been knocked away from her feet.

Her senses exploded in a moment of disturbing clarity.

And then she felt nothing.

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Okay, it's becoming gradually becoming painfully obvious that this story isn't going to finish in time for Christmas. Lesson learnt; if I do this next year (and, if you want me to, tell me) I will start much earlier and get it finished before December. All the same, I do plan on getting this story finished, even if it is behind the appointed schedule. After all, it's just getting interesting!**

**Merry Christmas and God bless,**

**Cat.**


	23. Sunday 23rd December

"_At Christmas, all roads lead home." ~ Marjorie Holmes_

_x_

Sunday 23rd December 2012: All Roads

The room was stark; the fluorescent lights lit the bare, white walls and crisp, equally-white linens with an impassive glow. The room was completely still, though not silent. There were too many machines beeping and whirring away in the background for that. The stillness was broken as a woman with bright red hair who had aged far too many years in the last week entered, quietly closing the door behind her. She pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed, holding the hand of the young woman lying in the bed, seemingly asleep.

"Hello, Haru." Naoko's voice cracked as she spoke; she licked her lips and tried again. "How are you this morning? I'm doing… better," Naoko paused and looked down at the limp hand she was holding. "First Humbert, then Daichi, now you, I don't think my heart can take much more. I know you don't approve of Phillip, but he has been a great help. I don't know what I would do if he weren't here with me. He's waiting for me, out in the hallway, he always does. With how you felt he thinks his presence wouldn't hel-" The redhead choked up then, unable to continue.

Naoko took a minute to compose herself, wiping away fresh tears. Then, with a shaky breath, she started talking again, "We still can't find your doll, I'm so sorry about that. We searched for her everywhere, we even went through your luggage. We haven't found any broken porcelain anywhere, so wherever your doll has got off to she's probably not broken, so at least there's that." Naoko shifted then, pulling a bag into her lap and pulled something out. "I know it's not the same, that this isn't the doll your grandfather gave you… but I thought you might like her still." Naoko placed a porcelain ballerina doll on a bare table next to Haru's bed. The figure was similar to Haru's Snowdrop Dancer, yet still very different. This doll had brown hair, rather than black, and her eyes were open and painted a brilliant blue. The pose was similar as well, arms raised above her head, feet together and _en pointe_, though her toes were attached to base, and a layered blue and white tutu that fell to the figurine's knees.

Naoko picked up Haru's hand again, "Shizuku still doesn't know what happened to her Baron doll; it's so strange for it to appear just to disappear all over again. I think she fancies the Baron and your little Ballerina ran off together to the Land of Toys." Naoko smiled weakly at this, "It's a sweet idea and would make for a very cute story. I'm sure you would love it, a story written with you in mind. Shizuku hasn't said it yet but I've known her for too long to doubt she'd use you as her inspiration for the doll in her story. I haven't said anything, but I think I'd rather like that." A glance at her watch, then a sigh from Naoko. "I really must be going now, life stands still for no one, not even during Christmas." The older woman carefully tucked Haru's hand next to her body, then kissed her daughter's forehead. "I love you, and I'll be back tomorrow, maybe with some flowers to brighten up the room."

Then, just as quietly as she entered, Naoko left again.

ooOoo

Haru was uncomfortable.

Now, for a human – or even a cat, she daresay – this was perfectly normal. But for a toy – and a toy she had been for the past month – this was... disturbing, to say the least.

She rolled onto one side, groaning as a spring in the bed stuck awkwardly into her spine.

Her eyes flew open.

All her senses were tingling from overuse – or underuse, she couldn't tell which – and flooding her mind. The light was too bright, the bed too rough, the air too warm. Every breath she inhaled was a potent mixture of disinfectant, clean sheets and lilies, while her eyes still struggled to cope with the sudden burst of colour engulfing her sensory inputs. She groaned, louder this time, and closed her eyes. It was all too much for her brain.

Slowly her mind began to sieve out the nonessential input and focused only on the main points.

One, it was too warm.

Two, she was in a bed.

And, three, beyond that she had no idea where she was.

She groaned once again and gradually began to put in place actions to push herself up. She set herself against the headrest, small aches and pains prickling all over her skin. She winced one eye open and then the other, slowly bringing a whitewashed room into focus.

It was rather nondescript, if she was to be honest. A simple selection of sheets – a cheap white – covered her and a plain bedside table was set to her side. Atop was a vase of flowers; this at least explained one of the earlier smells, and beside that an unfamiliar ballerina doll. She moved slightly, wincing further as new – and unfamiliar, concerning her recent toy status – sensations rushed along her nerves. She glanced down, only now noticing the drips inserted into the crook of her elbow.

She grimaced; she had never been good with needles, especially not ones inserted into her own skin. She gently pulled them out, dropping them down beside the lilies. She flexed her fingers, where the tingling sensation still remained but had numbed since waking.

She froze. Flexed her fingers again. Examined the creases that dimpled and dipped at the movement. For a moment the lines seemed so imperfect, so flawed. She frowned and ran one tender finger along the digit, amazed by the coarseness of her own hands. She clenched her palm, turning round for the back of her hand where the veins continued to run and hair roughened the surface. Where imperfections ran rampant across her skin – creases, veins coloured a sickly blue, spots, speckles...

All so very _human_.

She rose abruptly to her feet, still inspecting her hands. Her legs gave way, completely unfamiliar with supporting her, and she caught herself on the edge of the table. The vase was knocked off, the lilies spilling across the floor, releasing an acute sting of aroma that blocked her senses. She pushed herself away and stumbled towards the door. Only now did the whole realisation of what had happened was striking her.

She pulled the door and staggered into the white corridor beyond. The stink of disinfectant was stronger here, nearly unbearable, but Haru stayed there. She hesitated, collapsing back against the wall and letting the sting of the stench bring tears to her eyes. She froze, raising one tingling hand to her cheek. She caught the droplet on her finger, moving it away and watching it run along the contours of her palm.

How long had it been since she had last cried? How long had it been since Baron had last cried? How many times had they both wished for the ability to shed tears for past and present grieves? And now the tears were pricking at her eyes so easily even while she wished to be back in her stoic porcelain form.

Her feet pushed her forward, making her half run, half fall along the corridor. She kept moving, as if moving would bring her back to where she was needed most – to her companions back in the Cat Kingdom – to Baron. She passed a doctor and the man stopped in his stride, staring mouth-wide at the staggering young woman. He backtracked and caught her elbow before she tripped.

"Miss Yoshioka?"

The name sounded almost foreign. For the past month there had been no need to refer to her surname; she had been Haru, just Haru. She stopped and somehow losing that momentum lost her strength alongside it. Like a child sleepwalking, she looked without seeing behind her. Her eyes rolled back in warning before she collapsed.

ooOoo

"...and the doctor said he just found her wandering down the corridor, apparently completely disorientated and with no obvious indication of any awareness for her surroundings..."

"And you're saying that she just woke up... spontaneously?"

"Some individuals can wake from a coma with no apparent cause, Ms Yoshioka..."

"And... now?"

"She's showing normal vital signs; we believe she just tried to do too much too quickly upon waking and caused a momentary relapse. But she is well on the way to recovery. All she needs to do now is take her recuperation slowly and steadily with no sudden exertion and she should be fine."

"Where did the doctor find her?"

"In the hospital main corridor, Mrs Amasawa."

"And... I heard she was saying something."

"Just delusional ramblings, Mrs Amasawa. Under the circumstances, one can hardly expect Miss Yoshioka to be coherent–"

"Maybe not, but perhaps you could entertain me. What was she saying?"

"N... Nothing. Just something about a... a baron and having to get back somewhere..." There was a sigh, accompanied by the sound of someone moving their chair. "I think you'll often find, Mrs Amasawa, that patients can suffer from... _dreams_ while in a comatose state. The concept of struggling to get back may represent her subconscious desire to overcome her coma and return to the world of the waking–"

"Thank you, but I don't need a doctor's analysis for this."

"Shizuku, darling, he was just trying to help."

"I know what I know, Seiji. And I don't need a doctor trying to challenge that."

Haru tentatively opened one eye. Once again she was in the same room, this time minus the intrusive drips. Across were seated three of her favourite people in the world right now – three people she had never imagined she'd ever get to see again. Shizuku sat beside her husband, Seiji as usual trying to rationalise with the impulsive writer and, seated closest to Haru was Naoko Yoshioka. Discussion had sidetracked their attention away from the previously-sleeping brunette, whose brain was finally beginning to get its act together.

She closed her eyes, summoning whatever strength resided in her bones, and slowly pushed herself back up. This time she took notice of her shaking limbs, exhausted with lack of use and unfamiliarity. A pained grunt slipped past her lips as she righted herself, blowing stray hairs out of her face as she moved. For too long now her hair had only been a porcelain extension; now it was a wild, seemingly untameable mass of locks, always slipping past her control and into her eyes.

Her eyes flickered over the three individuals, their faces blessedly familiar and comforting in the impassive environment of the whitewashed hospital ward. She tried to rise to her feet and made one step before her legs fell out beneath her. She caught herself before she hit the ground, but now stood shivering.

"Haru? Haru!"

Familiar arms smelling of tea and wool wrapped themselves around her, bringing her into a tight, fearful embrace. Haru tensed, just for a moment forgetting that she was no longer made of the delicate china, and then relaxed into the hug.

"I've missed you too, Mum."

"I'm so sorry for everything I said – I know it all seems to have happened so fast and I've been thinking that maybe you're right–"

Haru withdrew from the embrace, enough to see the frightened, disbelieving expression on her mother's face. "No, Mum, you were the one in the right. I just... I don't even know anymore. But... whatever happens... know that I just want you to be happy. And if Phillip loves you and makes you happy... then I am happy with that."

"Haru... why do you sound as if something is going to happen?"

Shizuku approached the scene before Haru could stutter out a half-witted response. "Naoko, she's tired. She's clearly exhausted and needs sleep. What about giving her some time to recuperate before bombarding her with questions?"

"You're right. Of course, you're right."

"Recuperate...?" Haru stumbled forward, but was caught by Naoko before she could get anywhere. "Wait! What's today? What's the date?"

"It's the twenty-third."

Haru nearly gagged. "No, I can't rest... I might already be too late! They might be... Baron might be..."

Shizuku neatly shushed the nigh-hysterical girl. "You need to sleep. You're delusional and you need to rest. We'll talk about this later."

"But later might be too late–"

"Haru, _sleep_."

Haru felt herself losing this argument and so allowed herself to be helped back to the bed. The moment her head hit the pillow, the tiredness smacked her in a new wave of fatigue. She knew there was no way she could win this discussion. Her eyes sought out Shizuku, who was already offering to help Naoko find somewhere where she could get a decent cup of tea, and the older woman caught her gaze. She imagined herself to see a conspiring wink before the woman slipped through the door.

With a physical tiredness that she hadn't felt in a month pressing down on her, Haru slipped back into a dreamless sleep.

ooOoo

Upon awaking, she fell into the same confusion as before. Her senses scattered in bewilderment and she struggled to remember why the world felt suddenly so solid. But then the memories came in thick and fast and she almost shot up in remembering the time that had passed and the state she had left her companions behind in.

A gentle hand smoothed out the creases on her forehead and softly lowered her back onto the pillows. "Steady, adventuress. You're still not recovered."

Haru's eyes found Shizuku sitting beside her. "Where's Mum?"

"She's been struggling to sleep ever since... well, you can guess. Seiji drove her back to our home and I promised to call if any changes occurred. Hopefully she's fast asleep by now. She needs it..."

Reassured, Haru's attention shifted to the clock ticking rigidly across the room. It looked to be late afternoon, with fading winter light disappearing over the horizon past the window. "Is it still the twenty-third?"

"Yes."

Haru looked back to Shizuku. "You know it wasn't just a coma, don't you?"

Shizuku smiled. "I suspected as much. Where is the Snowdrop Dancer?"

"It's... in the Cat Kingdom."

"The Cat Kingdom?"

"I know it sounds mad, but you've got to believe me–"

"Oh, I believe you. I was just expecting it to be the Toy Kingdom. Although I guess the Cat Kingdom makes just as much sense... So Humbert's settled down in the Cat Kingdom then?"

"Not... exactly..."

Something in Haru's tone caught Shizuku's attention. The older woman frowned, a serious note entering her expression that was usually so relaxed. "Well then, I guess you should start from the top. I had my... suspicions that Humbert had taken the form of the Baron, and I knew the Cat Kingdom had a part in it somehow, but it had never been explicitly proven..."

"You were right." Already Haru sounded tired; the thought of recapping a month's worth of adventures, mishaps and mistakes looked to be a task too much for her today. But Shizuku needed to hear the whole truth, especially if Haru was to appeal to her for help on her current predicament. So, settling herself back into the pillows, she started her fantastical story.

"And now Baron and the rest of them are facing destruction unless someone intervenes or does something – anything – but I'm stuck here after the King returned me and I have no idea how to overcome that. I don't even know whether it is possible," Haru finished, gesturing emptily to the hollow air. "But I can't just sit here and do nothing – already the King may have built the pyre and have burnt Baron and there's nothing I can do about it!"

"Calm, Haru. We'll find a way. But you certainly have a quandary on your hands..."

"I'll say," the younger woman fervently agreed. "Even if... Heaven forbid... there's nothing I can do about this, I can't just sit idle – I _won't_. I need to know I tried everything I could to get back. To save them..."

Shizuku watched as Haru delivered her fierce words, a sad half-smile taking precedence over her usual go-lucky grin. "You really do love him, don't you?"

"I... I guess I do."

Shizuku's smile became yet more bittersweet. "Well, Humbert was always such an... outstanding individual. I cannot blame you; you could not have found a better man."

"He's different, Shizuku." Haru couldn't quite meet the other woman's eyes. "The last twenty years have... changed him."

"They changed us all."

"He's not the man you remember."

She heard Shizuku sigh. "I guessed as much. I had hoped that some of the man I knew would remain, but time and war will change that. Some of it must have."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, you fell for him, didn't you?" Shizuku chuckled quietly. "That means there must be something admirable about him, for I cannot imagine you'd fall for anyone without a redeeming feature. And to be so sure in your feelings for him – and, despite your hesitant words, I can see you are – he must be very special."

Haru smiled hesitantly. Shizuku's apparent telepathic abilities when it came to reading her emotions never ceased to amaze Haru. "Despite what the war has done to him there are still moments when I can see the Humbert you saw in him." And those moments had become increasingly frequent in the past couple of days. The thought came suddenly and without warning, catching Haru unawares. She almost choked on the thought, more tears springing to her eyes.

"Haru–?"

"It's alright–"

Shizuku caught the young woman in a tight embrace. "No it's not."

"No it's not," she agreed. "But what else can I say?"

"Well, you can help me think of a way to get you back to the Cat Kingdom..."

Haru pulled away. "You're serious? You're going to help me?"

"Would I say otherwise if I wouldn't? This is obviously important and if you can tip the balance in the lives of even a few toys and cats, then I say go for it."

"But... my mother..."

"I know. That's the one thing which is making me hesitate. In the end, only you can make the decision whether to go or not."

Haru was torn. And then she remembered the past month – the ups, the downs, the times when she had to support Baron, and when Baron had to carry her and she knew she couldn't turn her back on any of them. Especially not Baron, to whom she knew her heart belonged to. Her eyes flashed back to Shizuku. "Let's do this."

ooOoo

"Shizuku, I don't think we're allowed open flames in a hospital..."

Shizuku laughed and waved away the younger woman's quiet worries. "I'm sure this will work. In stories candles are always used for spells–"

"Yeah, in _stories_," Haru stressed. She glanced around the room, which was marked out with the addition of candles circling the bed. "I'm not so sure it'll work in real life."

"Oh, hark at Haru. She's been off on one adventure and suddenly she's the expert." Shizuku shook her head and continued to light the wicks. "At least give this a chance. I know some of our other attempts haven't been... very successful..."

"You're lucky the doctor didn't throw you out after he found you drawing chalk circles on the floor."

"I admit those chants were a long shot, but right now I refuse to overlook any possibilities. Not if there's even the slimmest probability that any may have the potential to work."

"Shizuku..."

"Uh-oh. I know that tone. You've thought of something, haven't you?"

Haru leant forward from her vantage point of the bed. With exhaustion still heavy in her limbs, Shizuku had explicitly banned her from trying to get to her feet, repeatedly maintaining that Haru needed rest. Since Haru couldn't walk without support still, the younger woman hadn't debated this point. "What if we're over-complicating this? What if the answer's simple and we're just overlooking it?"

"What are you thinking of?"

"I don't know, but... I have Louise's magic–"

"Yes, we've established that. That's why this whole endeavour has a radically improved chance of working in comparison to if we were trying to send back another person. What of it?"

"Well, the magic was the magic of the Toy Kingdom, right...?"

"Right."

"And toys are brought to life by a child's imagination..."

Shizuku sounded like she was wondering where this was going. "Yes..."

"So I just can't imagine that this would be complicated if the magic is so strongly fuelled by children's belief. It has to be something simple – something elemental."

The older woman finally paused in her candle-lighting task. "I see your point."

"The only thing is I don't know where to go from there. I mean, what could be so simple – so elemental and strong – to enable me to return to my Snowdrop Dancer form?"

Her companion was smiling. "Well, let us think about this logically. What do children believe is so strong that it can overcome anything? What are they taught to believe in and strive towards? What do the stories say?"

"I have a feeling you've worked it out already."

"Love, Haru. Children have a boundless ability to love and believe in love. Isn't that why all the fairytales tell us that true love can defeat any evil? Because that's what children believe?"

"That's all fine and merry–"

"I mean, and it's _Christmas_. If this magic is going to get you back in time to save everyone, then you have picked no better time. Christmas is filled with a hope and magic all its own, while children's stories always end with their happily ever after." Shizuku laughed. "I believe this will all work out for you Haru, just wait and see. Now, about getting you back..."

"You have an idea?"

"Barely. I have a concept."

"This sounds like it's going to be complex."

"Hardly. In fact it's so simple I doubt it would work. But if we are sticking to the concept of a child's belief being at the core of the magic, then all you would need to do is want it."

"What?"

"Want it and remember why you want it – for love – until it fills your entire being."

Haru shook her head. "When has that ever worked?"

Shizuku raised an eyebrow. "_I do believe in fairies_."

"That's Peter Pan."

"Yes, and remember what happened there? The belief was enough to bring Tinkerbell back. And what about Dorothy with her '_There's no place like home'?_ That took her back to Kansas, didn't it? Don't you see that children are constantly told that if they want something hard enough – if it is that important – life will find a way? And what do you have to lose by trying?"

"Alright. But how am I meant to... want it enough? If that were true I would already be back."

"The stories always have a mantra. Perhaps you should try that."

"Thanks. Like what?"

"Well, you might have better luck coming up with a successful phrase than I. After all, it's got to be something close to your heart. But... you might want to try something along the lines of '_Home is where the heart is_.'"

Haru doubtfully repeated the phrase. "Sounds a little bit elaborate, don't you think?"

"It's romantic. That's pretty much all the stories ever need."

Haru didn't lower her raised eyebrow. She sighed and shook it away. "Okay. But don't make fun of me if this doesn't work."

"Why would I do that? I was the one who came up with the mantra idea in the first place."

"True." Haru sighed again and settled back into the propped pillows. "Alright, I'll give this a go." She closed her eyes – more to shield Shizuku's expression than anything, and hesitantly repeated the proffered phrase. "Home is where the heart is... Home is where the heart is..."

"Is it working?"

"Well it jolly well won't if you interrupt."

"Sorry."

"Home is where the heart is... Home is where the heart is... Home is where the heart is..." Her self-consciousness began to slip away as she replayed the last month. The words continued to fall from her lips, but she was no longer forcing them out. She remembered racing with Baron out on the ice, dancing with him in their dreams... and her very last glimpse of him through the bars. Her mind jarred over the image of the two of them straining to reach the other, feeling his fingers barely brush against hers. Even with the numbness of porcelain skin, that brief contact was enough to make her heart wretched. It played over and over in her mind, even as she wished she had been just that significant inch closer – close enough to touch.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

"I need to go home."

Something clicked. There was a moment of blissful numbness, where everything seemed to pause for one mere second. The air died away, heavy silence blocked her ears and the candles' flames stilled. Just for that moment she was as numbed as she had been in her porcelain state, perhaps even more so.

But then the moment passed and the sound of life roared back into action. The machines clicked and beeped, the crackle of the flames snapped in the background and even the sound of Shizuku's breathing felt too loud in her tender ears.

And then the pain ripped through her.

It felt like someone was trying to claw away her very being – trying to separate something so intangible and fundamental to her that it should never be torn away in the first place. She couldn't even scream; the sound was ripped away in one long silent breath. But, through everything, she held onto her wish and her reason for pushing herself.

For Baron.

Just as suddenly, it all died away.

Haru was plunged into familiar darkness.

ooOoo

Back in the hospital Shizuku looked about the quiet room.

"How am I going to explain the candles?"

**ooOoo**

**A/N: The very first SECTION was kindly donated to me by **_**Nanenna**_** – one of my longest-standing reviewers – ridiculously, amazingly devoted and a great writer to top it all – who wrote it up with this story in mind. So all credit goes to her for that – if you liked it, tell her so; a little bit of extra praise never goes amiss! (AMENDMENT - I previously wrote 'first paragraph' as opposed to 'first section' - everything down to the first line break is _Nanenna's_ creation and I take NO credit for it.)**

**And... the chapter-a-day routine didn't work out. We could all see that one coming – the important thing is that this story is going to get finished, regardless of timing.**

**Also, quite a few of you did show significant interest in another Christmas special being written next year (which, I must admit, I'm glad as the last two have been such fun!) so I was curious as to whether there were any particular Christmas stories you'd like to see done. To **_**Anon**_** who suggested **_**The Steadfast Tin Soldier**_** – I was drawing significant influence for this story, so it is unlikely I'll do another version any time soon, although **_**The Little Match Girl**_** is a definite option. I also have a half-idea for **_**Narnia/Lion, Witch and Wardrobe**_**, but these are all just ideas at the moment. **

**So if there are any Christmas-themed stories you're burning to see written, drop them in a review or PM and I promise I'll take every option seriously – although I suspect it'll boil down to where inspiration strikes hardest – and I hope you'll be seeing another story this time next year!**

**I hope you had a very merry Christmas.**

**Cat.**


	24. Monday 24th December

"_Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you're home." ~ Carol Nelson _

_x_

Monday 24th December 2012: Home

The world was quiet, so very quiet.

At least, it felt so after the memory of her last deafening conscious moments. If she strained her hearing – which appeared to have lulled into a lazy half-muteness upon awakening – she could hear the gentle pitter-patter of water.

Haru decided she needed to stop ending days with being dropped into darkness; it was beginning to become repetitive and predictable – not to mention highly inconvenient. Nonetheless, there was a strange hollowness in her limbs which felt that, if toys had muscle which could ache, hers would be on the verge of collapse.

This line of thought reassured her that their mad-hatter plan had worked in one way or another. Although quite how it had worked or what situation she was about to be dropped in was yet to be confirmed. All she knew right now was that, if nothing else, she felt like a toy.

And that almost felt normal.

She eased one eye open, blinking away the warm summer sunshine glaring into her eyes. Either she had lapsed through months in her return or she was back in the Cat Kingdom. She blinked again, this time managing to focus on her immediate surroundings. She seemed to be in a courtyard of sorts; rounded cream walls cemented the perimeter and paved ground finishing the domination of the cream colouring. Spirals further out could be seen to ascend to the too-blue sky, coupled with the centre of the palace situated just behind Haru.

As for Haru herself, she was standing with her arms raised about her and toes gracing the ground in the typical _en pointe_ position. Or, as she discovered upon glancing down, gracing the plinth of the fountain, for a fountain she was indeed standing upon. The gentle tinkling sound she had picked out earlier was the water rushing along the various levels of the white marble fountain, sustaining the glittering gold fish that swam about the bottom.

Haru lowered her arms, examining her reflection in the shimmering water. Despite the ripples, she was undeniably the Snowdrop Dancer once again. Although what or how she had ended up atop a fountain was anyone's guess. Not that she intended to stay any longer. She made to move off, but suddenly found her toes were adamant on staying where they were. The result was that she almost toppled off her stand with her toes still glued to the same spot. She managed to right herself out, but not without giving herself a shock.

This time around she knelt down, suddenly fearing the worst. Dropping one hand down to her stubborn toes, she felt around the area between porcelain and marble to discover the tell-tale traces of glue about the base. She tried to pull her feet free, but once again to no avail. She was well and truly stuck.

"No, no, no, no..." A whimpering, frenzied sound slipped through her lips, so desperate it barely sounded human. "No, please no... I can't have made it all the way back here for this! It's just... It's not..."

Not fair. Not right. Not the way it was meant to be. As she continued to try to tug herself free, all these words came to mind, gradually taking on a more defeated air. She slouched atop the plinth, hugging her knees to her chest even as she was forced to remain upon the now-uncomfortable _en pointe_. To have come so far and be beaten so quickly was something she hadn't even considered. Hadn't thought possible.

She glanced morosely down to her trapped toes, wishing she knew how to use Louise's magic. With that kind of power, a little stubborn dabs of adhesive shouldn't pose any problem and yet it was the only thing tying her down right now.

Her eye lingered over a small slab of marble come loose on the fountain and found that she could just reach the piece. She pried it free and smashed it into the base around her feet. She began to repeat this, becoming more desperate as the marble base remained as solid as ever. As the anger crept through her entire being, into her mind and past the iota of sense that remained, she missed the slab and this time smacked it into the edge of her toe.

She screamed and dropped the marble. She couldn't taste or smell properly, and even the sense of touch was dampened as a toy, but this pain was much too real. More real and solid than anything she had ever felt in the Toy Kingdom – or Cat Kingdom, come to that. More small, subdued whimpering still escaping past her notice, she risked a glance at her tender toes.

There were several cracks spiralling around the area – deep, serious cracks. She tried to twitch her toes and felt sickened when there was the clink of loose china. The movement was accompanied by a strange tickling tingling and a sense of disconnection, but this time there was significantly more movement than anything she had achieved so far.

As if her toe was almost free.

She stole a glance down to the dropped marble. It sat in the bowl of the trickling water, just within reach. It was possible. It would work. But did she dare?

Gingerly she leant down and fished it out. Now it was slippery and smooth against her delicate skin, threatening to slide out of her grip at a moment's inattention. She rolled it over in her hands until she felt she had a stable hold on it. She glanced at it and then at her toes. She raised it but then hesitated.

Her feet looked so smooth, so perfect. And so very delicate. Even her cracked toe looked blessedly whole compared to what she was about to do. Compared to what they would soon look like.

As she hesitated, she remembered the King's threat.

"_Watch you burn... Want to watch you turn to ash..."_

She drove the stone into her foot.

The pain this time was excruciating – nearly unbearable. It shot up into her limbs and flooded her senses, sensations far sharper than anything the little Snowdrop Ballerina had felt before. Her mind fogged and then the pain snapped her back to clarity. The cracks had spread across her toes, forming an elaborate, dizzy pattern across the foot and that same sense of disconnection tingled in her limbs as more china came loose.

She smashed it down again.

More pain, more cracks, more pieces.

More free.

She crushed her right toes again and this time her foot broke complete loose from the tips glued to the pedestal. Her leg came free, slipping off the edge at the sudden lack of support.

She let it swing off the side, trying not to look at the limb and yet drawn to it. The tip of the foot was gone, now left with only the heel and majority of the foot, but both were heavily cracked. The pain was already beginning to ease; already she had disowned the china pieces as part of her and was starting to numb. A couple of long cracks snaked their way up her leg, a few deeper ones sustaining to her knee while the majority died off at her ankles. All still too serious for her liking.

Her attention shifted to her other foot – the smooth, whole one which still stood to attention on the plinth – and raised the marble slab with quivering unease. Turning away, she repeated the procedure with her right foot, slamming the stone down again and again until that same tingling, distancing sensation sidled alongside the pain. She pulled her cracked foot free, now letting both feet hang off the side. Pain hammered into her skull, alternating between blurring her vision and slipping into startling clarity until she began to suffer the swaying sense of motion sickness. She leant her head forward, willing the nauseating sensation away without much success.

She eased herself off the pedestal, landing gingerly in one of the fountain's lower layers. Wincing as her tender, woefully delicate soles balanced themselves on the smooth, rounded marble. She leant against the edge and lowered herself further down, this time reaching the paved ground. Spreading her weight onto her fractured feet was painful, but with little idea as to how much time she had before she risked discovery, she didn't have the time to ponder over her pain. She shuffled as fast as she could across the courtyard, hobbling through a side door into the interior of the palace where she felt significantly less exposed.

The inside was as cream as the exterior; clean, empty and with the faint aroma of fish. She hobbled faster along the corridor, swallowing back her panic when she heard footsteps coming her way. She dragged herself through a curtain that appeared to serve as a door just before the felines rounded the corner. Biting back a pained whimper, she leant against the opposing wall while the cat guards – which she could just about see through the crack between wall and curtain – marched stoically past.

She now turned her attention to the room she had slipped into. It was a small, messy room, filled with piles of marked uniforms stored in open lockers and another door marked up ahead with a thin curtain. The guards' store room, evidently. She started to move out, but found herself eyeing a pair of thick black boots. She picked them off the nearest shelf, carefully pulling them onto her feet. They were lined with fur – rabbit fur, maybe even mouse; she wasn't about to inquire – and she quickly found that if she stuffed a (stolen) handkerchief into the boots then they fitted much better and her tender smashed toes weren't at risk of further damage. She paused, intending to leave upon solving her foot problem, but now found herself eyeing a cloak stuffed hastily into one open locker.

Stealing a glance to the undisturbed curtain to reassure her she wasn't at risk of immediate discovery, she started to pull the cloak free. It jammed against the sides as if wrapped around something bulky; an extra pull tugged it free and it flew out of the locker. Something else fell out, hitting the stone floor with a hollow clunk and rolling across the ground.

She moved the cloak aside. What it revealed made her blood run cold.

The top hat lay neglected to one side. It was wooden and a light grey colour – almost white – although it looked greyer than before. The brim was chipped, scratches bored into the paint that even Haru's porcelain fingers could feel. She ran one hand over the familiar headwear, almost unable to believe what she had tripped upon. And completely unable to believe what the discarded, forgotten top hat implied.

Her hand curled tightly around the brim. Denial rose within her, but it was also coupled with something else – a strange sureness that she would know had anything happened to Baron. That, somehow through Louise's magic, she would feel it. And, standing in the silent guardroom with the hat held to her, she felt nothing.

There was a fresh pattering of paws and Haru dashed into the next room along with just enough time spare to disappear round the other side of the curtain before she was spotted. Leaning back against the wall, she strained her ears while the cats entered the main room. By the sound of things they were just a pair of guards picking up a few items for their watch, but they lingered for far longer than Haru was comfortable with. She stayed frozen where she stood while the two toms dilly-dallied in the room beyond.

"Hey, Ichiro, hurry up! We just need to find the hat and be going – you know the King doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"I know, I know... but I think somecat's been through my locker..."

"Probably some of the other guards just tomfooling about."

"Well, if they've been tomfooling about, then they thought taking the hat would be a bundle of laughs–"

"You're kidding me." There was the frantic scrabble of paws, followed by the sound of several items being thrown haphazardly to the side. "The King is going to blow a vein. He's going to go ballistic."

"You said it. We're going to be in such trouble–"

"_You're_ going to be in such trouble. You're the one who let slip that you had the Baron's hat, so he's going to blame you for losing it."

"Thanks for the support." There was an aggravated sigh from the other cat, quickly followed by more frenzied searching. "If I had known the importance he was going to bestow upon one lousy top hat, I would have kept my muzzle closed. I mean, I'm the one who confiscated it from the entertainer in the first place, so really it's mine. I don't know why I should have to give it up–"

"Ichiro! Have you lost your wits? Do you really want to be caught saying that?"

Ichiro quietened down. "All I'm saying is that does the Baron really need his top hat for this? He's going to burn anyway, so what difference does one wooden hat have? Maybe it's significant in the King's mind, but everycat knows he's beginning to lose his marbles–"

"Ichiro! Do you have a death wish?"

"I'm just saying what everycat is thinking–"

"Maybe, but not everycat is as dumb as you to actually _express_ such a view..." His companion sighed, sounding like he was also rubbing a paw over his face to dissipate the tension. "Look, the other guards have only just starting putting the pyre together, so we have another half hour at least to locate this missing hat – and keep any other... dangerous thoughts to yourself! I like keeping my head on my shoulders, thank you very much."

"It was just a thought..."

"Well in future keep your thoughts to yourself! Come on, let's see if we can track down the addled tom that stole the hat – the King's spent the last couple of days making sure all the nobility come to see his great success. I don't want to be the one to tell him something's gone amiss."

With that, the two felines bustled out, more fraught words heard to be thrown between them as they exited into the cream-coloured corridor beyond. Haru gently eased herself out of the room into larger one, hat still clutched tightly to her.

"He's alive."

She laughed out loud, throwing back her head in pure abandonment for the joy in those two little words.

"He's alive! Yes!"

There was the sound of running paws, sending Haru scurrying back into the next room, muttering insults to her stupidity for forgetting her own situation. Once again she only made it just in time to avoid being seen. Luckily for her, it seemed her shouts hadn't been what brought the cats to the room.

"What do you mean you've lost it?" The King's voice echoed about the stone walls with a booming, irrational rage that immediately began to shred her nerves. "One little task! One itsty-bitsy little task is all I ask of you and still you fail me! You are not worthy to be in the guards!" Each accusation was coupled with a whack. "You are not worthy to work in this palace! You are a pathetic mewling kitten!"

"Your Majesty–"

"Not a word from you either! I blame the pair of you for this!"

There was the nervous patter of another pair of paws tentatively entering the main room. "Your Majesty?"

"Oh, what NOW?!"

Haru could hear the newcomer cat quivering. She was ready to bet that, whatever news the feline was bringing, he'd really rather not right now. "It's... It's..."

"It's what? Spit it out! Are you a cat or a mouse?"

Haru heard the newcomer swallow. "It's the doll you set on the fountain–"

"What about her?"

"She's... um..."

"Yes?"

"She's gone."

There was the sound of something being thrown against the wall; it sounded suspiciously like one of the guard's boots previously lying spare about. "MORONS! IMBECILES!" he screamed. "I am surrounded by idiots! How can you let an inanimate doll escape?"

"Your Majesty, we didn't think there was any need–"

"I know what will have happened. Some remaining blip of the resistance will have stolen her away to become a symbol for their cause. Well, I won't allow that. You! Take a dozen of my finest soldiers and scout the area for whoever broke her from her platform. They can't have gotten far." The King sighed and through a gap in the curtains Haru could see him pacing. "This time I won't make the same mistake. I should have kept her to be smashed at the same time as Baron's demise..."

"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty..." One of the two guards hesitantly spoke up, curiosity appearing to outweigh his common sense. "But... why didn't you do that in the first place? What exactly did you do to the ballerina?"

"I sent her back to her own world." The King stopped pacing and turned to the nervous guard, a grotesque, sadistic smile creeping across his face. Haru hid back behind the wall, suddenly afraid she would be spotted spying behind the curtain. "I returned her to her real body, there to live out her days as a pathetic human. Death would have been too easy, too quick. So now she has a whole lifetime to live in remorse for what she lost. That will be more painful than any demise I could have delivered, I promise you. And I cannot lie – gaining such a pretty ornament as the Snowdrop Dancer was a bonus. A symbol, if you will, of my victory."

"What will you tell the Baron?"

"The Baron?"

"You've told the other guards to establish the pyre in the courtyard – he will see that she's missing."

"To hear that other rebels have stolen her away will only give him hope..." the King mused. "As for what happened to the girl herself – he will know that I sent her back to her own world. He may be impulsive and irrational, but he's not stupid. You!" One of the cats could audibly be heard to jump.

A new cat – probably one unfortunate enough to be passing by the door at that moment – nervously entered. "You hollered, Your Majesty?"

"You're helping with the pyre, is that right?"

Haru risked a glance around the curtain to see the poor guard, who was currently holding a bundle of firewood, nod awkwardly. "Y...Yes..."

"Find some china – we must have some lying about somewhere – and scatter it into the pyre."

"What kind, Your Majesty?"

Haru could hear the grin in the King's next words. "The kind that looks like broken ballerina."

She felt her heart go cold – if that was even possible. She withdrew back against the wall, breathing slow despite no need to breathe at all as she stared up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes, bringing the hat closer to her as she willed the King to leave before she was forced to listen to any more of his cruel plans. She was already sick of it.

"As for you two – neither of you will leave until you've located his hat. If it's not found before Baron's final performance, then don't bother turning up at all. Understand?"

"Yes..."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Good. Well then, carry on." The King glowered one last time before flouncing out to oversee more of the day's events. The two toms exchanged nervous glances. Ichiro's companion shoved his friend.

"Now do you see what you've gone and done? Now we're both in it!"

"I was always going to be in it."

"Yes, but you didn't need to drag me into it too! I swear, if I lose my head because of one stupid hat, I'll use my remaining eight lives to haunt you–"

"I think you forget that if you lose your head for this, I'll be in exactly the same predicament. Come on; help me look. Perhaps the other guards have just hidden it in one of the other lockers."

Haru remained hidden where she sat. There was no other way out of the second room except through the first, and that would require sneaking past the two guards. Something, short of knock-out gas, that would be impossible. Time ticked by and Haru began to become more fraught; she had so little time if she was to save Baron from the fire. And it was slowly being fritted away as she hid behind the wall.

"Look, it's obviously not here, so we better start spreading out our search..."

"What about the next room? Perhaps someone's just moved it into there–"

"Are you sure you put it into your locker? Perhaps you put it somewhere else..."

"I'm sure I'm sure. Stop asking me that! Come on; let's check the next room..."

Haru's eyes widened in terror. She was on the verge of being discovered and the most she had to defend herself with was one wooden hat and a cloak. Hardly a brilliant combo. She began to edge to the side, catching a red guard coat in one of the lockers and scattering it towards the ground. She caught it before it fell, but snagged one of the buttons loose in the process. All the while, the two cats in the next room were still debating – maybe now, but she was almost certain that eventually they would agree to search her room.

She snuck back over to the curtain, coat and button now also weighing down in her hands. Stealing a glance, she saw their attention was divided from the curtain, but not enough for her purposes. Glancing to the coat, she snapped another button off and softly dropped the jacket to the side. Weighing up one of the buttons, she threw it as fiercely as she dared onto the far wall.

It had the desired effect. Both felines jumped and snapped round to the source of the sound, with Ichiro's companion yelping as he did so.

"What was that?"

"I don't know. Probably a mouse or something. Must have been."

With their backs to her, Haru threw the second button. This one hit the wall to the cats' left, making Ichiro stumble back into the table. It rattled and, as it did so, she tossed the top hat into the leg of the table.

"Did that sound like a mouse to you?"

"Careful! You almost knocked everything off the table–" As the second guard glanced back to the table his companion had knocked into, he spotted the tossed hat. "Hey, Ichiro! I think I've found your runaway hat!" He swiped the item off the floor and whacked his companion upside the head with it. "Moron."

Ichiro was rubbing the back of his skull ruefully. "I swear it wasn't there a moment ago..."

"Well it was jolly well there when I found it and be glad it's been found at all. Come on; let's get this to the King. We barely have five minutes left to spare." He smacked his friend with the hat for good measure and ushered him through the curtain to the corridor beyond. Haru stayed for a few precious seconds longer while she waited, lest the two guards reappear for any unforeseeable reason, and then tentatively crept out of the neighbouring room.

Both it and the corridor were empty, almost making Haru's task ahead look much simpler than it was going to be. She tied the cloak around her, pulling the hood over her remarkable face and hesitated at the doorway.

She had five minutes. She knew where Baron was going to burn, but as of yet she had no plan to tackle her situation. She just knew she had to do something – although she had little idea as to what kind of _something_ would work. She had already proven that she couldn't overpower the guards or battle her way out of problems – not only was she just not made for it, she also lacked the knowhow – and so either diplomacy or scheming were available options. Again, the diplomacy option was thrown right out of the window; if his own son couldn't talk him out of this war, she had no chance of talking him out of burning Baron.

"Guess I could always improvise," she murmured.

More guards could be heard to be heading her way; she ducked back round behind the curtain as they passed by. Again, she let the seconds tick by before peeking her head back into the corridor. It was once again all clear. She sighed, closing her eyes as a faint feeling of sickness rose in her. She knew that, had she had a heart, then it would be racing. As things stood, she just suffered a mild form of motion sickness, as if the lack of pumping blood was unbalancing her. She placed one hand against the wall to steady her before she pushed herself into the corridor, one hand briefly rising to check the hood of the cape.

As she neared the courtyard, chatter began to become audible. She slowed, suddenly nervous about her flimsy disguise. It hadn't worked for Baron, but the King had been looking out for him then. Now the King believed her to be back in the Human World and the Snowdrop Dancer still as inanimate as ever. Why would he be looking for her? She pushed forward with these thoughts to steady her, slipping nervously through the doors into the courtyard.

As opposed to her initial impression of the courtyard, it was now packed and busy with the bustle of nobility. Felines dressed in all manner of attire were gathered in the paved area, flitting about in light conversation. Haru weaved her way between the crowds to where the centre of attention appeared to be, keeping her head low as she walked. Chatter rang hollow in her porcelain ears; it was meaningless, vacant conversation of nobles meeting nobles that she couldn't bring herself to care for. She ignored the curious glances or hostile stares from felines she elbowed out of her way. Despite all of this, she managed to reach the far side of the courtyard, away from the front where she risked recognition and nearer to the back. From there she could still painfully make out the scene set before her.

A pyre stood upon a raised platform; the pyre was a lattice of wood balanced against one another just ready to be set alight. Haru could see the light scattering of broken china meant to be her littering about the bottom of the wood. She tightened the cape about her, suddenly uncomfortable with the proximity. To the side, heavily guarded by more of the red-clad felines, were the rest of the party she had been forced to abandon. Corin, Muta, Toto, Hiromi, Paris, Robin... They all looked so defeated. The last few days had taken their heavy toll upon the collection of cats and toys. Corin looked so... _small_. So young. Haru swore she could feel her heart breaking.

If only she had a heart.

The doors at the front opened and Baron was led out.

His scuffed, scratched top hat was back upon his head, balanced precariously between his ears. His sharp, refined walk had been worn into a tired shuffle and only his toy status prevented the bags from forming beneath his eyes. Even so, Haru could see his eyes struggling to focus. They swept once over the cat crowd gathered before him and Haru may have imagined it, but she was sure his eyes lingered for a mere moment longer over her. But then they moved away and Haru was left wondering whether that hesitation was only a figment of her desperate imagination.

The King appeared from behind Baron, his wide feline grin bearing down at the spectators as his eyes bulged sporadically in opposite directions. He rubbed his paws together gleefully while his guards kept Baron in place.

"Ladies and gentlecats, I am honoured to tell you the toy threat has reached its last stand." His voice echoed off the cream walls, weaselling their way into Haru's ears even as the sickness rose up again within her. "Today we shall see the toys' leader, the great Baron, perish to the flames of the fire! Today the Toy Queen's companion shall meet the same fate as her! And today the resistance shall crumble! This will show that anyone – cat or toy – foolish enough to stand against me shall meet an untimely end!"

His words sent nervous prickles down Haru's spin; a phantom feeling from her time as a human. Somehow she got the impression this wasn't just a show of victory. This was an open threat.

And she still didn't have a plan.

Baron was shoved forward. He stumbled towards the pyre, shooting a death glare to the King, but pausing as his eyes caught the empty fountain plinth. He staggered, but resisted the next forceful shove from the monarch. He twisted round to the cat, hate radiating in his emerald eyes. "Where is she?"

"Where is who? Move, moron."

Baron dug his feet into the ground and rounded on the King. He struggled against the guards holding him in place, but caught them unawares enough to face the monarch. Haru wondered how defeated he had appeared if that action had caught the guards by surprise. "Haru. The ballerina, you bumbling fool." The words were spat from his mouth, each syllable loaded with venom but eerily quiet. "Don't play the idiot with me. I know you placed her there; where is she now?"

The same sadistic smile Haru had witnessed earlier spread across the ugly feline's face. He fanned himself airily with one paw. "Ah, I grew tired of her pretty face. I smashed her, if you must know."

"Why, you..." With an abruptness which completely threw his captors, Baron lunged for the King. He drew his arm back and delivered two well-aimed punches before the guards caught up with him. He was hauled back, but not before the King retaliated. The monarch pushed forward with his own attack, striking the Baron's face once. The King caught his own actions and moved away, breathing hard and flushed with adrenaline and madness. He wiped away at the blood trickling at his lip and head.

"You really are too predictable, Baron. Even with a wooden exterior, you are so hot-headed. So angry at the world all the time. So easy to rile."

Baron picked up his head, glowering at the cat even while three fresh scars ran jagged across his carved face. They didn't bleed, but just remained as clear and deep as ever. "You... _monster_..."

"Oh, I think you're being a little harsh there. I sent her back, didn't I? What I smashed was only a hollow vessel–"

"How can I believe you? For all I know your magic may have bound her. For all I know you may have killed her the moment you rendered the doll inanimate. How can I believe any of the words that fall from your mouth?" he demanded.

"Do you really think I'd make her death that easy?" The King leant in. Baron strained against his captors, but his arms were now held fast. "Oh, you have no idea how I work then. You think I'm so simple-minded to think death is the worst thing that can happen, but that's only your own hot-headed heart speaking. Or it would be, had you had a heart." He smirked. "You see... Me? I think things over a lot more than you'd like to believe. I am patient. And I know a lifetime of regretting her past will be worse than anything else your Miss Haru might have imagined. So trust me when I say that Miss Haru is safely back in the Human World, condemned to a mundane life of nothingness and regrets ahead of her–"

An animalistic scream was torn from Baron's throat as he fought ever harder against his captors.

The King stepped back, contempt curling at his lips. "Pathetic. That's what love does to you, Baron. Makes you weak. Stupid. Irrational." He nodded to the two guards. "Enough. Tie him to the pyre. Time for him to burn."

Haru remained frozen where she stood. The scene was morphing into a nightmare and she was rapidly running out of time. And still she had no plan. The sickness of fear and anxiety rose again within her – stronger, more overpowering this time – and she could barely suppress the desire to sink to her knees with defeat. She remained standing.

Just.

She wondered what this war would have been like if Louise had survived. If she had been around to bear the last few years of the war. Whether Haru would have ever entered this war – whether she would have met Baron, or fallen in love, or learnt to become so much more than she ever had been at the start of this December. Whether Louise would have found a way to save Baron already. Whether she would even have left everything fall into this mess.

"But she's not here now," Haru whispered to herself. "I have to do this."

Something simmered inside her; she felt just that little bit stronger and she stood up tall again. Again, she saw Baron's eyes flicker across the crowd and pause – definitely pause – at her spot. Between the fresh scars, a light frown crossed and confusion flicking in those wooden eyes. She had never thought about his eyes, but they were undeniable, definitely wooden. She wondered whether she'd ever get to see his human eyes. She wondered whether they'd ever turn to her in the gentle smile and affection she'd grown so fond of over the last month.

The King struck up a flame, which flickered eerily bright against the pallid walls of the courtyard. Time was running out.

"Wait!"

Something had made her shout before she had even realised what she was doing. Her cry sent the nobility into a round of nervous, scandalous muttering, angular eyes turning to the cloaked individual. She began pushing forward before her head had approved the action, although she needn't have worried about the crowds; the cats began to anxiously part before her, as if rebellion was a disease to be caught on close contact.

As she reached the front, the King leant forward. "Who are you?"

With a strength Haru wasn't aware she possessed, she levered herself onto the platform in a smooth, fluid motion, quickly bringing herself up to the King's level. Now standing tall once again – another kind of strength feeding into her – she met the King's gaze. "I am the one who will uncover your lies."

She swept the hood off, revealing her perfect porcelain face. It stood impassive in its unblemished form, almost inhuman without a single spot, mark or freckle dotting her face; something that she felt keener now than she had in a long while. She stared back at the King while the mutterings increased tenfold among the spectators. A sharp smile that Haru wasn't even aware of spread across her face.

"Remember me?"

"You're... You're..."

"Haru!"

Her eyes moved to Baron and only now did she fell the sharpness of her grin. She softened it, once again struck with how insubstantial her plan had been. She hadn't even thought this far ahead and now she was in danger of truly being smashed this time. She heard the furious roar to her side and dodged in time to avoid being whacked with a clawed paw. Again, she felt herself move before she had even registered the noise, almost as if something else was guiding her through this. She jumped to one side, ducking so as to miss the King's outstretched paw.

"Do you really think I'd leave that easily?" she snarled. "That I would abandon my friends to the fate you set out for them? Are you really that stupid?"

"You're the stupid one for returning!" He swiped at her and this time caught her shoulder. She found herself pinned to one side of the pyre, cornered in by the mad monarch. "You should have accepted the fate I dealt you out when you had the chance," he whispered. His paw curled about Haru's wrist. "Because now I will take great pleasure in breaking you..." His grip tightened, sending tendrils of pain shooting through Haru's arm. She yelped in pain even as she heard Baron shouting from his restrained point.

"I hope you heard what I told your precious Baron earlier. Love is a weak, stupid and irrational feeling; can't you see what it's made you do? What it's turned you into?"

Haru stopped her struggling, pushing past the pain into a cold fury. "Then I think you've forgotten something. You see, I may be weak, stupid and irrational, but I'm in love. I'm filled with magic from children's imagination and I'm in love." She ignored the pain further in order to lean towards the King, whispering out her next words. "And in children's stories, true love defeats all."

The King's paw twitched in a spasm and the sudden increase in tension sent cracks running deep into her hand. He looked shocked by the result and abruptly released her wrist as if it had just burned him. The sudden movement deepened the cracks and when her wrist was freed it caused her right hand to crack entirely. It fell into a hundred porcelain pieces.

Haru looked to the hand, aware that she should be screaming in agony and yet wasn't. She felt different. She felt powerful. She felt as if someone else was standing alongside her. She glanced to her side, even as the King was staggering nervously back, and swore she saw a figure – white-furred, feline and familiar – standing insubstantially beside her that only she could see.

The ghostly figure gave a quiet nod.

Haru nodded back. She knew what to do.

The figure dissipated away.

Haru glanced back down to her shattered hand. "Well... would you look at that? See what you did?" She raised her arm which now ended in an ugly stump, showing it for the whole audience to see. "That's my hand, that is. Or was."

The King was twitching.

"What... What are you?"

Haru smiled. The action felt satisfyingly feline. "I'm a fool in love and I'm going to take you down."

She raised her head, feeling the magic of the previous monarch bubble up inside her. She smiled wider as the magic coursed through her wrist and danced about the severed limb, weaving a silver cocoon about the cracked china. It spiralled upwards, and then suddenly withdrew from the oval formation into a defined hand. The fingers flexed experimentally, gleaming in the summer sunshine. The light faded and a hand was left.

Haru brought the new extension up to her face, flexing the limb with the same experimental air. "Well, that was unexpected." Instead of a porcelain palm to match her other, this hand was wooden and painted with a white glove. She crossed her hands over one another to fully appreciate the changes. She thought of the ghostly figure. '_Perhaps I've been given a literal helping hand..._'

She met the King's gaze. "Ladies and gentlecats, I am honoured to tell you that the Toy Kingdom is far from beaten. In fact, I think your King is going to discover that he's messed with a force to be reckoned with." She smiled again. "Now would be a good time for you to run."

The feline nobility took her warning to heart; there was an abrupt mad-dash for the doors, soon leaving only the restrained toys – and Muta and Corin – and the guards in the courtyard, with Baron still tied to the pyre and Haru standing between him and the King. "I think it's your move, Your Majesty."

The cat released an animalistic howl, charging towards Haru with his claws extended. "I'll smash you! I'll shatter you into a million pieces – you'll die by my paw, just you wait!"

She sidestepped the attack, ducking away and kicking him with the stolen boot. He staggered, falling into the other side of the bonfire even as more pain shot up Haru's leg. She wasn't made for this, but she wasn't about to bow out either. She stood confidently opposite the monarch, eyes sparkling with the newfound power. The guards started towards her, but she struck downwards with her reformed hand. Fire sprung up around her and the King, skirting far enough from the bonfire to prevent it setting alight.

"NO! This is just between me and him!" she cried. "Anyone who attempts to intervene will be burned." Again her eyes glittered, but a fiery orange glow this time. "Release my friends, unless you want have a taste of my fire."

The guards glanced between one another and, with all the loyalty of a snail, deserted their king.

"Cowards! Traitors!" The monarch yowled his anger after the fleeing felines, but it wasn't enough to bring them back. The rest of Haru's companions now stood free, but unable to aid her with the fire separating them from her. That didn't bother Haru; she had been telling the truth when she had claimed this fight for her own. The anger of two raged within her, doubly strong, doubly painful.

She moved towards the cat, hatred blazing across her face. "Get to your feet, Your Majesty." She raised both her hands and two swords were formed in the same spiralling silver. She tossed one down to the feline. "I don't kill defenceless idiots, not even cowardly ones."

The King ran one paw along the edge of the sword, claws tracing at the wooden handle and leaving scar indentations in it.

"Get up, I said!"

"Never mistake cowardliness for brains." Snarling he grabbed the edge of the sword and thrust the handle into the flames of Haru's fire. The fire was a deadly, hungry thing and instantly latched onto the new fuel. Too late Haru realised her own mistake.

"NO!"

The King smashed the handle into the pyre's wood, where the sparks flew onto the fresh timber and raced along the dry kindle with a bottomless appetite. The broken china glittered back the orange flames, almost making the fire look as if it was glittering.

"Try to save your love now," the King growled and he jumped through Haru's wall of fire.

Haru stumbled forward, the shock killing her controlled flames, which died away to reveal the King fleeing and her companions rushing forward. She started towards the burning bonfire, but before she did so there was a guttural feline cry of anger and she released her weapon. It flew through the air and struck the King between the shoulder blades. He jerked back and collapsed to the ground.

The pyre's fire was fierce – fiercer than any fire should be – and hot enough for even Haru to feel the heat upon her porcelain skin. And there was Baron, caught in the middle of it. She started forward, but Muta and Toto caught her.

"Are you mad? The fire will burn you as easily as Baron!"

"I'm porcelain," Haru snarled. She tried to tug herself free. "I don't burn, remember?" Corin made to move towards the burning Baron; instantly she knew how this was going to end unless she intervened. "No, you don't." She pulled herself forward, catching Corin's shoulder before he could near the fire, using her momentum to drag herself free of her friends. She pushed Corin back to Muta, which stopped the fat cat in his tracks, and pushed herself forward. Before Muta or Toto could stop her this time, she was in the flames.

The pain wasn't immediate or abrupt, but steadily built up in her limbs as it bore down on her porcelain skin. While she wasn't burning, the heat was no less comfortable for it. She surged her way to Baron, whose eyes were dulled and wooden suit was charring where he stood. His tired eyes flickered to Haru, wordless shock present at her appearance; flames tickled the side of his face, burning away the paint and eating its way towards his eyes.

"What...?"

Haru made a sharp shushing sound with her right hand – the only part of her that was prone to burning – clicking her fingers to summon her magic but shocked beyond measure when instead of forming a blade as planned, she grew claws. She just stared, even as the fire began to advance on the hand. Taking what was given, she used the feline claws to strike the ropes binding Baron, breaking him free and hauling him away. She lay him down on the paved ground.

Now away from the fire, the damaged done was painfully visible. She passed one hand over the side of his face, extinguishing the agonising embers to leave the blackened burns streaking along his cheek to his ear, scarring across his eye and leaving the stark emerald colour a coal black. The scars inflicted by the King still remained as raw as ever across his face, overlapping the burns in bleak contrast.

He blinked – pained and slow – and the blackened left eye unfocused entirely. The right eye turned to the ballerina kneeling worriedly beside him. He blinked again, and this time the left didn't open at all.

"Haru?"

Haru choked back a relieved laugh which was threatening to dissolve into tears. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She closed her eyes and the events of the day flashed behind her eyelids. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" A charred hand stroked her cheek. "You came back, didn't you?"

"I was too late. Too scared."

"You didn't need to come back, but you still did. You are braver than you give yourself credit for."

"I did need to come back," she quietly amended. "I couldn't leave you all behind."

A strange, asymmetrical smile slipped over his face, lop-sided where the burns made movement painful. "That sounds like the Haru I know and love. You're so sure in your beliefs, you know that? Such surety in something so fundamentally good is rare. Treasure it. But..."

"But what?" She slipped her hand over Baron's, trying not to flinch at the coarseness of the burns that even her skin could feel. "Baron?"

"There... was something else in you when you faced the King. Something new."

"Something familiar?" Haru offered.

The emerald eye widened. "Yes."

"I think..." Haru hesitated, unsure how to put it into words or whether she was even sure of what she had seen. But she had enough conviction to think it was worth being truthful about. "I think Louise may have helped me back there. I feel... as if she had a little unfinished business to attend to." She smiled softly. "That a little of her lived through in the magic – enough to give me that little bit of strength to carry on when I was on the verge of collapse and to awaken the magic inside me. That's why I was able to stand up again. To stand up to the King."

The eye crinkled in confusion and then reassurance. "I should have known Louise would never die that easily while there was still business to attend to." His hand tightened about hers. "Good old Louise."

"Yes." Her smile watered; she still didn't feel like it'd been enough. "Good old Louise."

Baron sighed and tried to prop himself up. Haru lowered him back down before his arm gave way.

"No. You are in no fit state to move."

Baron's hand moved to Haru's wooden one. Burns ran across the palm which ended in fingers topped with claws – a hand that Haru imagined had looked uncannily close to Louise's. Burns blackened it like they blackened Baron's face, but the damage was restricted to her hand alone. She winced at the contact, the sensation in her hand finally kicking back into gear.

"Haru? Are you okay?"

She chuckled humourlessly. "Okay? You're the one who can barely move." She eased her hand away from his, moving it to his face and wincing anew at the scars that traced his jaw line.

"What–"

"Shush. I can help. I know I can." Ignoring the pain and focusing alone on the magic she knew ran just beneath her skin, she pressed her wooden fingers against the cracks. She slid her fingertips along the scars, erasing away the marks with the tell-tale tingling of Louise's magic. She moved her hand over his cheek, rubbing away the burns until the only sign of the injury was a darker shade of orange. Her fingers paused over the black eye.

She hesitated. Withdrew her hand from the eye.

"I'm sorry. It's gone too deep there. It's too tender."

Baron brushed his face with one of his gloved hands. A pleasant look of content surprise passed his features. "You've done more than enough. After all, you've brought hope back to the land of the toys..."

"I can't get us back." The words came out in a rush, clattered together into one stuttered flow of syllables. "I got myself back here, but I don't know how to make it work the other way around. I'm..." She sighed. "I'm too tired."

"You've done enough, Haru."

She sighed again and shook her head. "I killed the King," she murmured. "That's enough to get me in serious trouble. I'm going to have to run."

"We'll run together."

"Don't be silly. You can hardly walk, let along run."

"I'll find the strength."

"That's..." She trailed off as Baron pushed himself up, slowly easing himself onto his feet. He swayed, but stood tall. He glanced to the top hat that had fallen upon being hauled out of the fire.

"If you would...?"

"Oh... sure." She picked the smouldering hat off the ground, passing it to the wooden figurine.

Baron nodded his acknowledgement and placed it comfortably between his ears; the shorter ear was still a stump, but not even the fire damage could hide the fact that it had begun to heal since the wound had first been inflicted. "I can, and will, stand. I will walk alongside you and, with your help, I'll run too. We've come this far together; I think we can survive a little longer."

Haru's eyes softened. "Okay." She hugged him impulsively, catching him off balance. She had to release him abruptly and catch his elbow to stop him from falling. "Oh, sorry... I had momentarily forgotten that you're still unsteady."

"I'm fine. But are you sure this is the life you want? It is so very different to being human, I assure you."

"I know. But I don't have much option... We thought that killing the King would return us to our human forms, but it hasn't. And I can't do anything about it. Anyway," she added, taking his hand in hers; now with her altered hand in a wooden state, their hands seemed to match, "I'm happy to be with you. There is one thing though..."

"Your mother," Baron correctly guessed.

Haru nodded.

"We'll find a way back to the Human World – however temporarily. We'll make sure she knows what happened – how you're safe and happy and, most importantly, that this is what you want. Will that be enough, you think?"

"That... would be perfect. Thank you." She glanced down to her mismatched hands, struck once again by the contrast in her two palms. "There is something else that I must also deal with. Louise's magic..."

"You are her heir. You are the next Toy Queen."

Haru sighed and shook her head. "How can I be when I need to run? The kingdom should be passed onto a toy that can rule without a death threat hanging over their head. And I am not cut out to be royalty. I cannot wield Louise's magic."

"Then what are you going to do?"

Haru smiled softly. "Something that should have been done a long while back." She released his hand and stepped towards the other toys. "It appears that the Toy Kingdom almost fell into ruin because the magic was placed into the hands of a single toy – and in those hands the fate of the entire kingdom rested. So now I willingly pass on the monarch's magic onto all four of you – to rule together and protect the kingdom you have fought so hard for. Toto. Hiromi. Robin. Paris." She nodded to each individual. "Rule well. Rule long." She released the magic and felt it flow into each of the four toys; she sighed contently, feeling that burden of responsibility lift from her porcelain shoulders.

The magic gone, she staggered back. Baron caught her shoulders, almost stumbling in the process. Haru glanced back to the feline figurine. "Right pair of weaklings we make," she joked lightly. She groaned and unsteadily restored balance to her feet.

"We've both been through a lot. That was a wise decision, Haru."

"Thank you."

"So what are your plans now?"

"Of course we'll have to run." A gleam of adventure flickered to life in her maple eyes. "That doesn't mean we can't explore the Toy Kingdom though. I'd like to see more of that world; I want to see the paradise it was meant to be. And if we run into a few adventures on the way then..." She laughed. "Well, we'll cross those bridges when we get to them."

"I like the sound of that. I like it very much."

"I guess we better get going, huh?"

There was the sound of guards, rejuvenated with renewed courage, heading towards the scene of the crime. Baron grinned to his companion. "I think the way out of this kingdom is through an unsolvable maze, up the tallest tower and through a portal into goodness-knows-where. You sure you're up for this?"

"Let's go." She turned back once to the individuals who had become her firm friends in the past month. She nodded her farewell to the toys she'd just made royalty, nodding also to Muta, but paused as she looked to Corin. As always, she was struck by how young he appeared. She nodded once. "Long live the king."

They started into a sprint, hindered by their injuries but able to bypass them enough to put on some speed as they made a beeline for the nearest doors. As they passed the fallen king, the cat twitched and a paw shot out. It grabbed Haru's ankle and brought her crashing down.

"Haru!"

She screamed as she hit the ground. Cracks split up across her face; one formed across her eye and rendered her vision into double. She glanced behind and saw the defeated king on the verge of death, but still holding onto her boot. She could hear the others shouting and Baron returning to her side, but all she could see was the slain king. His mismatched eyes were rolling in madness, but one always seemed to be focused on her nonetheless. He tried to speak, but the words lodged in his throat and he only coughed up blood instead. "This time–" He broke into coughs, vomiting more blood, but his grip wouldn't loosen on Haru. She should have kicked, but terror had caught her. Terror and just a hint of morbid curiosity. The cat was dying. He couldn't even damage her in this state. What did he hope to achieve?

The eyes rolled again and finally both focused on Haru. The grip tightened. "This time love loses."

The crown gem atop his head shone in a familiar glare of light and Haru felt herself dragged away from her porcelain body. The aches and pains of the burns died away, replaced with a thick, pounding solidity and the weight of gravity tying her down. Suddenly her body felt heavy, laboured with the task of lungs breathing, heart pumping, brain busy in a whir of impulses and nerves.

Her eyes snapped open to the memorable view of a whitewashed ceiling.

"No. Not again."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: Very long chapter today, so I'll make this short. Thanks for the reviews (reviews make me happy) and I'm sure you'll be delighted to know there's only one more chapter to go. I know this chapter is long, so thanks for sticking through to the end of it. And if you've reviewed, well... you're all kinds of awesome, I hope you know that.**

**Many thanks.**

**Cat.**


	25. Tuesday 25th December

"_Christmas began in the heart of God. It is complete only when it reaches the heart of man." ~ Unknown_

_x_

Tuesday 25th December 2012: Heart of Man

"No!"

She sat up so suddenly that she triggered a screech from someone sitting nearby.

"Haru?"

"Miss Yoshioka?"

"Haru! Thank goodness!" A familiar pair of arms wrapped themselves around Haru in a tight embrace. "They said it was probably just a short relapse; that you'd be back, but I couldn't help fearing the worst. But you're back! You're really back!"

"Yes..." Haru leant into her mother's embrace, tears slipping past her guard. "It would appear I am... for good..."

Shizuku leant over to take the brunette's free hand. "Haru?"

Haru dropped her gaze. She shook her head with the barest of motions.

Shizuku sighed and looked away. She swallowed back the emotion and, breathing deeply, nodded in a sense that appeared to be tackling the acknowledgement. "You did your best," she whispered, quiet enough for only Haru, who was looking for it, to hear. A watery smile edged its way onto her features. "You were so brave."

"_You didn't need to come back, but you still did. You are braver than you give yourself credit for."_

Baron's words came back to haunt her. She tried to smile, but it would come. She leant once again into her mother's embrace. "What day is it?"

"It's Christmas," Naoko answered. "Christmas Day."

"Let's... Let's go home."

ooOoo

Haru still didn't have the strength to walk independently yet, but Naoko managed to talk the hospital into letting her take Haru back to the Amasawas' house. It might have been because it was Christmas, or because they recognised the good it would do, or just because Naoko was scarier than a bear with toothache when she needed to be, but come Christmas afternoon Haru found herself bundled into the back of the Amasawas' car.

Naoko and the Amasawas did their best to make Christmas as normal as could be, but not even the Christmas carols chirping merrily in the background or the giving of presents could hide Haru's constant tiredness or her unspoken sorrow. Even the toll of breathing was a chore she was unaccustomed to and so she took to dozing in quick, stolen moments. She ate little for Christmas dinner, hungry but unable to tackle eating too much in one sitting.

Eventually she was left to sleep in an armchair. She felt her mother tense whenever she drifted back into sleep, but Naoko finally seemed reassured that Haru wasn't about to slip back into her coma state. And so she slept, half aware in her dozing state of people walking around her and talking, but too tired to kick her brain into gear. A part of her rejoiced; she had thought spending Christmas with her family was an impossibility she would have to pass up this year and yet here she sat.

Phillip appeared later in the day; Haru smiled to herself, finally allowing herself to see with clear eyes the care he displayed when around her mother. She could do worse, Haru acknowledged, but if he was making Naoko happy then the redhead couldn't do any better.

Shizuku stopped beside the quiet brunette, carrying an offering of water and Christmas cake. Shaking herself away, Haru gratefully took the tray. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." The woman took a seat beside the young woman. "So, would you care to tell me what happened?"

"I can try, but I'm not even sure I understand what really happened. It all... seemed to happen so fast." She sighed and began to reiterate the past twenty-four hours, Shizuku listening patiently as Haru corrected herself, mumbled over some parts and completely forgot about others, but eventually the story was told. She rested against the armchair, eyes fluttering shut with pained unease. "So the King's last action was to send me back and now I can never return," she finished. "I gave away my magic and now not even wishing will grant me that desire."

Shizuku was quiet for a minute. She hummed into her hands as she took in the situation update. A strange sort of hopeful smile curved at the tip of her lips. "You say the King was on the verge of death when he sent you back?"

"Yes. There is no chance he'll ever recover from the wound I gave him."

"Do you think he'll live?"

"No. No way." The memory of the King's bulging eyes, rolling with the madness of death bore into her brain. She shivered. How long had it been since she had last shivered? She had seen more pain in the last month than she ever imagined, and yet only now was she granted the reassuring sensation of shivering. "No, he died. He must have."

Shizuku took Haru's hand in a quick gesture and gave them an encouraging squeeze before releasing her. "I'll be back in a moment. I just need to contact a friend."

Haru nodded, but already she had fallen back into the lull of sleep. More scenes played out before her, scenes that blurred between reality and fantasy. Thoughts of the last month wove between the Christmas party; she saw Corin dance amongst the other guests, Muta squeeze his way into the kitchen and Toto, this time bird-sized, fly above the people's heads. As dreams danced between the waking scenes, she could have sworn that it snowed inside for a few minutes and that the much-trodden carpet shifted into a sheet of ice just like the one she and Baron raced across on that fateful Frozen Ocean crossing. Eventually she fell into a heavier sleep, but her dreams continued to blur the line between the Human World and the Toy Kingdom. She relived moments and images from the past month; one moment she was still stuck atop the fountain, the next she was talking to Toto and then she was dancing with Baron. She tried to stay on that moment, tried to freeze it there, but it continued to slide into the next moment, with the King's discovery of their deceit. The scenes came faster now, containing only images that each bore a thousand words.

Cracks. Cracked hand. Porcelain hand. Wooden hand. Wooden hat. Eyes. Mismatched eyes. Blue, blind eyes. Seeing, red eyes. Blackened ruined eyes. Emerald eyes. Porcelain eyes. Snow. Cold, harsh, unforgiving snow. Beautiful snow. Desert. Cracked earth and barren ground. The beginning of life in those bare cracks. Hope.

"Haru?"

She opened her eyes. Her surroundings were blessedly, beautiful real. The dreams dissolved away as Shizuku knelt down beside her. "Haru? How are you feeling?"

Haru blinked away the last remnants of the dreams, finally bringing the Amasawas' lounge into sharp relief. She smiled down at the woman. "Better, thank you. I'm going to be okay, Shizuku. I promise."

Shizuku grinned. "Glad to hear that. Because there's someone here who I think you'll want to see." She stood and offered a helping hand to the tired young woman. "Someone who you know."

Haru frowned, trying to understand the smug, cryptic message the older woman was giving her. She took the hand, though, and rose unsteadily to her feet. One hand moved to the top of the armchair for extra support as she balanced uneasily on her tender soles. "Shizuku, who...?"

Shizuku turned her around to face the hallway door. "See for yourself."

Standing in the doorway was a young man who Haru could safely say she had never met in her life. He looked as unsteady as she, with his back leaning against the jamb of the door and his eyes turned away as he talked nervously to the two older individuals behind him. Their mannerisms and features indicated they were family, probably even the young man's parents. The young man in question was tall, with tawny hair and dressed in a suit that was uncannily familiar to the young brunette. The man's mother spotted Haru and tapped her son on the shoulder. She pointed towards Haru.

The young man finally turned and suddenly Haru was frozen by the breathtakingly familiar emerald eyes turned on her – eyes that she never imagined she would get to see in the flesh. Eyes that she had only seen painted onto wood. They hadn't done him justice.

She was stumbling forward before she could think, but her tiredness wouldn't allow her to run. She shrugged away Shizuku's attempt to help, wanting – needing – to achieve this herself. She caught herself on a table before she could fall, righting herself and now finally taking the time and care to walk in her current state. It took balance and strength that she wasn't aware she had reserves for, but slowly and steadily reached the doorway. She looked up into those eyes she had come to know so well.

"How?"

Baron smiled – how easy the expression stood on his human face, how simple and carefree – and said, "The old king is dead. The spell is broken."

"You came back."

He kissed her. Until then, Haru didn't know how long she'd been waiting for it to happen – how many missed moments and interrupted conversations they'd had – but suddenly she couldn't care less. She knew that a kiss between them while in the Toy Kingdom wouldn't have been the same, _couldn't_ have been the same when one was only porcelain or wood, and suddenly she felt glad that their first kiss was here, in the Human World, with the terrors of the war behind them and a whole life ahead of them.

A life _together_.

Baron ended the kiss, but didn't move away. The smile returned, this one softer as he whispered out his answer.

"No. I came home."

**ooOoo**

**A/N: I know the ending may seen abrupt, but it felt like the right place to stop and I don't like to drag things out unnecessarily. (After the last chapter I thought you might need some simple fluff.) And, as guessed by a couple of you, the Nutcracker version that I believed influenced me the strongest was probably the Barbie one. And I know the stigma associated with Barbie, but that movie was a very enjoyable adaptation of a much-done classic and by far the best Barbie one.**

**I didn't get much input for next-year-ideas, but I still plan to at least look at doing another Christmas Special next year – since I really enjoyed this and, judging from reviews, so did you. I apologise for the bad timing/organisation, so thank you for sticking through with this to the end.**

**So thank you for all the support: **_**laurashrub, Rowena BaronErikandSnapelover, Nanenna, SideshowJazz1, Vivid x Dreams, Elz Durden, The-Right-Girl, neko girl, inujisan, aznchocoholic, CC21, Suki-Alanna, Lighted Candle, Vorserkeien, Raye of the Sunshine, inulover1993, Solar, delilah hunter, Karshiva, Fan Baron, Waterpokemon, ChucklingDevil, Gefion, The Story Lover **_**and last, but certainly not least, **_**Anon**_**. You are all WONDERFUL, new or old, brief or epic-length, and if I had had the time you would all have received replies to your amazing reviews. I can never express how happy I am to be in such a brilliant fandom with you guys. You keep us writers writing!**

**So I hope you had a very merry Christmas and thank you again for putting up with my tardiness. Hopefully next year – if I take up the challenge – I'll have better timing. So Happy New Year and try not to party too hard.**

**Cat.**


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